What I Tell Them
In the shallows a boy
holds another boy’s head
under until the thrashing
calms to a loving
obedience. In this version
he unlocks his fist-
ful of dark hair before
the breathing stops
& the whole wooded walk
home they laugh at
how fingers learn to tolerate
their matches. In time
trust the burning. That thing
they feared most
not handed down another
generation. Blackness
& everything it carries.
In the version
I repeat to my children
evenings over
their well-built cribs meant
to withstand my weight
& my father’s & his
both boys shake
off the shadows the world
has splayed for them.
Even if it means belt & bruise,
they’ll return to the river together.
Even if I have to add some talking animals
to make it sound true.
holds another boy’s head
under until the thrashing
calms to a loving
obedience. In this version
he unlocks his fist-
ful of dark hair before
the breathing stops
& the whole wooded walk
home they laugh at
how fingers learn to tolerate
their matches. In time
trust the burning. That thing
they feared most
not handed down another
generation. Blackness
& everything it carries.
In the version
I repeat to my children
evenings over
their well-built cribs meant
to withstand my weight
& my father’s & his
both boys shake
off the shadows the world
has splayed for them.
Even if it means belt & bruise,
they’ll return to the river together.
Even if I have to add some talking animals
to make it sound true.
John Sibley Williams is the author of As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize, 2019), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press, 2019), Disinheritance, and Controlled Hallucinations. John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Wabash Prize for Poetry, Philip Booth Award, American Literary Review Poetry Contest, Phyllis Smart-Young Prize, Nancy D. Hargrove Editors' Prize, Confrontation Poetry Prize, and Laux/Millar Prize. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and works as a literary agent.