THE MOON IS TWO HALF-MOONS JOINED TOGETHER
Her body still // yoked to histories retold // so often even her great
grandmother, who lived it, cannot // remember the river’s name she
// crossed to get here. Tigris. Rio Grande. Euphrates. How the men
& more // men & when the men were done, they’d touch finger to
forehead to chest to shoulder & zip up their flies. How sometimes
the world // works like that. The bullet passes right // through & on
the other side another // language to learn, another god to // feed, &
a child that wears half your face. Try not to take it // as a sign, how
they see // you, momma says. The books the kids don’t read don’t
mention it. This name. That first name. The constellations it takes to
turn // sky into map. How boys still // rock-paper-scissor their way
to cruelty, which hurts // less than their taking her // as white, which
at least means they love // what they see. & a red clay stain that once
was a river.
ABOUT THE POET
John Sibley Williams is the author of As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize), and Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize). A twenty-three-time Pushcart nominee and winner of various awards, John serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review, teaches for Literary Arts, and is a poetry agent. JohnSibleyWilliams.com
ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW
We’ve loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), so now we want an opportunity to better hear our contributors. We will feature an audio recording of a poem from one of our issues, read by the poet and updated every couple of weeks. This an open invitation to all contributors from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to hear it.
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