Parallax

Headlight-brightened bodies pass
                                            by, briefly, before blackening
                                         again in the nameless expanse of gulch
                                         & grass. One could almost say

                    illusion, that all this seeing
                    is a trick the light plays to keep us

                                           rooted in place. In this case,
                                           driver, subject. If things worked out

differently, we’d be out there wandering the object-heavy night

                    dreaming that our raised thumbs meant
                you can trust me & unarmed, then drinking
                the moon from crushed cans rusting by the road.

                                            At 60 miles per hour, the world seems
                                            such a tender thing, the chorus sustainable,
                                            all this darkness an excuse to call our parents

                                & pledge we haven’t failed them yet. As one does
                                a country or a god. Winterbare,

a tree blurs by like someone else’s skeleton. The landscape moves
                                                                    uninjured by frost. From here

                                             I can love generously, believe

                        what passes is just some earlier version of heaven.

Author of the article

John Sibley Williams is the author of five collections, most recently As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize, 2019), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press, 2019), and Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize, forthcoming 2020). A twenty-three-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Wabash Prize for Poetry, Philip Booth Award, and Laux/Millar Prize. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and works as a poetry editor and literary agent.