My American Ghost
        so draw the eyelids
                shut & forget the fire
        tangled among the branches
        of your spine
                —Michael Wasson

& we shall be lit

        like the dark haloes

clay pigeons stain onto a lawn

        before shattering: how sun-

light strikes a coin

        differently after a train

flattens its face: another furious

        daybreak lost behind clouds.

& our mouths, nestfuls of promises,

        we shall open them almost

fully: swallow & speak for what

        we've swallowed: a whole

new language of witness. Shadows

        mean there's something up there

lighting us from behind, right? Breaking means

        some of us are still intact. Let's

follow the Rorschach of blackbirds

        with our crosshairs & choose

not to fire, or fire & own it. I confess

        I don't think we're ready

just yet to own our ghosts.

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Copyright © 2022 John Sibley Williams All rights reserved
from The Drowning House
Elixir Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission