After William Carlos Williams
What will you say about all this, what will you
say when your own crippled voice asks you why
not take that soft step to the dark, why not
make this going to sleep the last going to sleep?
What will you say about the kiss of water that
barricades the soul against dark inches of death,
how to explain the singing mouth of the wind or
the seeds the sunrise plants in your eyes or the
perfect shapes of birds whose right names you
have never learned? How to justify the going on,
the tramping through wet waist-high fields, how
to say I am not ready to go, I am not ready, not
yet? How to say yes this is all there is, this walking
under rain, this walking under extinct trees hoping
it will rain – yes this is all, but won’t you let me stay?
Let me grow my fairy castle cactus in the north-
facing window which is the only window I have and
hope for the best.
Shannon Lise
Shannon Lise grew up in Turkey, attended university in Texas, and is currently located in Québec, where she’s wrapping up a doctorate in clinical psychology. She is the author of Such Excess of Light (Kelsay Books, 2021) and recent work has appeared in The Bombay Literary Magazine, Ballast, and State of Matter.
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