[vc_row row_height_percent=”50″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”2″ top_padding=”3″ bottom_padding=”3″ back_image=”56863″ back_position=”center top” overlay_alpha=”0″ gutter_size=”3″ shift_y=”0″][vc_column column_width_percent=”100″ position_vertical=”bottom” style=”dark” overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ medium_width=”0″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ zoom_width=”0″ zoom_height=”0″ width=”1/1″][vc_custom_heading heading_semantic=”h1″ text_size=”fontsize-338686″ text_height=”fontheight-179065″ text_space=”fontspace-111509″ text_font=”font-762333″ text_weight=”700″ text_color=”color-xsdn” sub_reduced=”yes” subheading=”by John Sibley Williams”]Brevity[/vc_custom_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_empty_space empty_h=”2″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Some bodies, only alive for a day, & in that
a light to envy, though none of us would give
up this long wet world for a matchstick, flint-
struck, sulfur-scented, burning & in that burning
a reason to cherish what we’ll lose before holding.
All this looking back to another’s biology to explain
our distress. What to worship when what we worship
is a negation, a rope our hands tremble too wildly
to knot. What we need is a choice that is not really
a choice at all: a different body, winged, hard-shelled,
brief as wings butterflying the surface, pond broken
& as if it will remember the breaking, a motive;
let’s say it’s to love, love knowing the love won’t last
the night. Distilled, incandescent as mayflies. Hold me now,
love, as if it’s always already too late.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column column_width_percent=”100″ align_horizontal=”align_center” overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ medium_width=”0″ mobile_width=”0″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″ width=”1/1″][vc_empty_space][vc_separator sep_color=”color-184322″ el_width=”30%”][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column column_width_percent=”100″ align_horizontal=”align_right” overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ medium_width=”0″ mobile_width=”0″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″ width=”1/3″][vc_single_image media=”58158″ media_width_percent=”100″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]John Sibley Williams is the author of As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize) and Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize). A nineteen-time Pushcart nominee and winner of various awards, John serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review. Publications include: Yale Review, Atlanta Review, Prairie Schooner, Massachusetts Review, and Third Coast.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
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