PHILLIP B. WILLIAMS

Visitation


—or it was night that entered, tar-hued

and moved inside me, a new blood; its star-

pocked hands gave the promise of bats. I waited 

for their leather to spill into my window, 
 
for their tiny throats to blow 

and trill. A bell some distance away, bats

in its mouth, loved the taste and swayed. 

I had wanted something of my own 

to bind me. A man could live in the blur

of a hundred hearts, could be taught 

to tame the eager clapper, which is Loneliness 

testing the marrow and awaking what’s within: 

scatter-song, blind and coming on like skin.

 

96   The Paris-American

Phillip B. Williams is a Chicago, Illinois native. He is the author of the  chapbooks Bruised Gospels (Arts in Bloom Inc. 2011) and
Burn (YesYes Books, 2013). He is a Cave Canem graduate and has received work-study scholarships from Bread Loaf. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review Online, Callaloo, The Southern Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Sou’wester, West Branch, Blackbird and others. Phillip is  currently a Chancellor’s Graduate Fellow at the Washington University in St. Louis and is working on his MFA in Creative Writing. He is the poetry editor of the online journal Vinyl Poetry.

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   Next week's poet:

 Lyn Lifshin