Because Everything Here is a Brightness
By John Sibley Williams
In this version, the sky smuggles stars
over a horizon's barbed border without
a single shot fired. & someone is always
emptying our cages of their children.
Another folds into pollen into comb
into a sweetness that carries no sting.
& because we were given so much at first,
it's okay when a little is taken back.
When running half-naked in the backyard,
my daughters don't ask why the world
will soon shield its eyes from their bodies.
Or stare, longingly. Or touch. Or worse.
The country their great-grandparents fled
& the country that interned them & today
the way our neighbors spit their venom
cannot, in this lullabied version, take root
under our skin. Swell. Redden. No, this
vibrant sidewalk chalk doesn't mean someone's fallen.
Yes, our fields will forever refuse to age into cemeteries. I
promise these doors we're drawing on your bedroom wall
will swing & stay open. Widely. Wildly. & my
hesitant, half-broken hands will always ache toward light.
Because of your light. Because this sky. Because
everything here is a brightness. & the stars singeing your palms,
I pray will never heal.
Source: https://www.amazon.com/skyscrape-John-Sibley-Williams/dp/B0C1DPT2TD
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