Goodbye Horses
       

my dead work their fingers through my son's
gnarled & knotted hair wilded already
from my touch            ligatures i hope translate
lovingly            once the damage is done & my
apologies            all played out            can be seen as
rehearsal for the burning            house he'll inherit

x

an unmothered bird            that plumeless factory writing
itself all over the horizon            i tell him nothing
out there will hurt more than            this brief kiss
not the steel-springed horses            rusted & reddening
in a park in a town that's forgotten            how to child
not the bloodied noses of            this is mine everything
here is mine            & divvying up            the world unevenly
like shot marbles            not these fingers relentlessly combing
my dreams through his sleep            our dead only as dead as

x

a sung-out lullaby            raptured as the snapped steeple
down the street the birds congregate on snagged &
unforgiven as            barbed woolen tufts once the wolves
have done their worst            another fence & feast & goodnight
not that our horses ever needed breaking            this field
forever fallow            springs rooted to hard earth            this map
leading home always back home            forgive me            son
this kiss            as innocent as i can make it

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Copyright © 2022 John Sibley Williams All rights reserved
from Sugar House Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission