The rain is a hood pulled over the world.
Our neighbor’s house, vanishes. & its windows
through which we watch things undress.
The plastic deer neck-bent as if chewing up the lawn
go the way of other deer, of the wolves, the arroyo
turned creek again. & beyond that somewhere
we pass through as quickly as our pickup allows a dry reservation.
Sightless, driven more than driving, we leave briefly
for that higher ground.
& in our absence,
if our cellar floods, well, it’ll give us a reason
for bucket & heft. If the slot machines mommy pumps her grocery store
checks into makes the water there more potable, a reason.
If my brother picks another fight with someone who’s name isn’t
quite like ours. If the horses goddamn everywhere recognize
the yoke of our hands. If from these hills
I can witness
our home, consuming & being consumed. The ironwood I knifed my name
into wash itself clean. The deer return. If the deer return daddy says
wolves won’t be far behind. Shotgun & fences. I can’t see our fence from here.
The barbs, what catches on them. The valley floor. It’s wide- open
mouths we fill with English.
John Sibley Williams is the author of seven poetry collections, including Scale Model of a Country at Dawn (Cider Press Review Poetry Award), The Drowning House (Elixir Press Poetry Award), As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press), and Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize). A twenty-six-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Wabash Prize for Poetry, Philip Booth Award, Phyllis Smart-Young Prize, and Laux/Millar Prize. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and founder of the Caesura Poetry Workshop series. Previous publishing credits include Best American Poetry, Yale Review, Verse Daily, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and TriQuarterly.
