Two
poems from Ian Williams's You Know Who You Are
followed
by a note on the author
Not
Saying
Fists
in our sleeves, we reach our limit. No way
past
Lake Ontario, nothing else to do
until
you say the thing you need to say.
Sweeten
it if you like. Stir in a name.
It’s
only talk and we’ve talked our heads to
foam
before, testing the limit in a way.
Like
the first time our four feet inched partway
over
the city’s ledge. Lightheaded you
started
to say something you needed to say
then
started again, We could – we can fly one way
to
Europe.
How you said it, as if we were two
wild geese, no credit limit in the way,
or
plain clothes Supermen – it’s a bird, it’s a plane –
in
search of adventure. But Kent what’s new
is
just new again. Say what you’re dying to say.
Of
course, don’t. We’ll stay here. The little café
in Paris
is an expensive bother. Nous
sommes
à la limite de l’amitié,
find a way
to
translate. If you won’t say, I won’t say.
Fillicide
Cordelia
The
old man should think more
about his blood pressure.
His
heart can only take so much
love. You try to do someone a favor.
Isaac
When
he goes back, who will wash
my blood from his clothes?
I
stiffened my neck. He’d have to hack it twice
at least. Then I heard the
knife clang against
the
altar stones. When I opened my eyes
I didn’t see the ram at first, but
the
sweat under father’s raised arm
his head crusted black against the sun.
Zeus
Rhea
saw the spit string from his beard
the wild eyes and weedy brows.
It
was enough to make her sick – nasty
nasty
man
– she told me the story later
enough to make me cry.
Don’t
eat me Cronus.
I am your son. I love you more
than the others.
©
Ian
Williams divides his time between the US and Canada, where he edits Toronto-based
Misunderstandings Magazine. In 2007, he held a poetry residency at the
Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska, and in 2008, he will be
a Cave Canem fellow. His writing has appeared in Pebble Lake Review, MARGIE,
Callaloo, and in the Canadian publications, Contemporary Verse 2,
Descant, and the Dalhousie Review. Williams completed his Ph.D.
at the University of Toronto, and is currently a professor at Fitchburg State
College in central Massachusetts.
"Not
Saying" first appeared in the Nashwaak Review.
