John Sibley Williams

How to Pronounce Knife

stage the scene. another unquiet family
ritual. dawn & the woken world already
exhausted. light extinguished. curtains roughly
parted to an unharvestable field. off-
white milk thickly swallowed. someone else’s
child, cheeks pillowed, hands somehow still oceans.
great-greats & steps- & promises sanded down
so the edges won’t hurt. not so much. truth, as it is,
kept from. later, throats to open. pluck & drain.
a beastless calm follows the bleating. excruciating
silence. a morning train or two phlegms by, steam
like contrails lingering, briefly. overchurched sisters. half-
brothers fingering bolt guns too rusted to pierce.
on the radio, the kind of static you can sing to. full-
hearted. open-palmed. eyes turned inward.
tin foil keeps the signal in place, swaddles
bent wires together. like an unintended infant, kept. or moth
snug in a barn spider’s embrace. embrace the loose wooden
handle. blade dulled by overuse. still, the sun catches
in its thin mirror. press firmly & saw skin from pit
until everyone you love drips down the counter,
your lips, chin. these stains an altar. sweet,
sweet atonement. not for anything you’ve done,
of course. we’re past that now. the overripe
nectarine doesn’t hold up under such scrutiny. no
metaphor here. no future poem awaiting hindsight.
necessary distance. just a wobbly kitchen table
cluttered with bartered fruit. you can’t remember
what it is you have left to trade for. or how it is morning
like love rarely ends with a house filled with family
on fire.

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John Sibley Williams is the author of eight 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.