The Fiddleback

Back to top
Standing in the center of what was once
a cutting room floor,

I wonder how many windows are left to shatter—
only a handful of stones in my pocket.

And how those I’d long ago broken are now taped,
boarded, secured, as if I’ve never been here

before. How the walls have endured my neglect
and fire. Everything still smells of me.

And still I can hear the rusted gears churning,
the knives flaying,

all the workers returning to work.
I see the lawn I thought I’d grazed down to soil,

green and full and sprouting the same dead flowers

I thought I’d eaten down to stem.

--------
John Sibley Williams is the author of six chapbooks, winner of the HEART Poetry Award, and finalist for the Pushcart and Rumi Poetry Prizes. He has served as Acquisitions Manager of Ooligan Press and Publicist for Three Muses Press and holds an MFA in Creative Writing and MA in Book Publishing. Some of his over 200 previous or upcoming publications include: The Evansville Review, RHINO, Rosebud, Ellipsis, Flint Hills Review, and Poetry Quarterly.

 

Volume 1, Issue 5 Back to top