Our apple tree shakes loose its last fruits & bends, nightmared, over my boarded-up bedroom window. Dry, swirled palette of sky Monets overhead. Everything not nailed down is dancing midair, weightless, like the silence after a mother’s eulogy. If there’s one thing the televised war has failed to teach me, that I am learning now, it’s the crisp, clean sound of a body, splitting.
John Sibley Williams is the author of nine poetry collections, most recently Disinheritance. An eleven-time Pushcart nominee and winner of various awards, Williams serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review. Publications include: Yale Review, Atlanta Review, Prairie Schooner, Midwest Quarterly, Sycamore Review, Massachusetts Review, Columbia, Third Coast, and Poetry Northwest.