Skin Memory by John Sibley Williams

I have been a fan of John Sibley Williams for years and Skin Memory did not disappoint. Williams has a gorgeous way of spinning images and language to surprise and reveal truths, which for me is the point of poetry. His poems mix childhood, rural settings, interior life, and adult responsibilities to create a rich and relatable world for the reader. It is a book of small yearnings, which seemingly take place outside of time and remove us from time’s constraint. Buy here.

From “Hekla (Revised)”

. . . If Jules

Verne had actually journeyed to the

center of the glacier the world rests

on—heavily, like a grandfather sunk

into a worn armchair dreaming of half-

healed wars—he would have known

there is no center. No past tense. No

word that means the same translated

back to its native silence. Every few

thousand years the hold betrays us: ash

darkens firmament, fire surges from a

dying culture’s mouth. That nothing

dies for long is a story we tell ourselves

to make the earth easier to sing, to

convince the earth we may have once

added something to it.

“Off Season”

Blood spills across the snow like lit

kerosene. The sun in the snow half

blinding & true as glass looked into

too long. Hobbled prints wind along

an iced-over riverbed into the forest

where the things go to die don’t

die by our hands. We’ll follow what

we failed to kill all our lives.

From “Tonight’s Synonyms for Sky”

After enough pilgrims have kissed

its feet, any statue can be holy. Any

estuary, even after swallowing a few

children, can be known again as a

place of solace. Just give it some

time . . .