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Captive
Thursday’s trap door below her
memory swings and up
climbs the same captor
always that man, grey wool suit
red carnation
taking her furniture, pictures
Saturdays hostage
again she bumps into the empty
spaces between bare walls
of personal care
Tuesday teaspoons clatter around
pronouns and prepositions
turn against her
it’s all for and him
from and to and she
under
always them
Sundays standing in shaky dark
her shadow pulled
from within
by that child, is that green corduroy
she can’t place
strangers in framed thens
Wednesday’s worn thin metal circles
around her bent finger
she turns and strokes warm
its edges
she remembers
little from where it came
only that touching it keeps
Monday quiet
and the smile seems less
foreign, younger
almost captivating
Friday
grey and red and
Losing
fifteen two fifteen four fifteen six and a pair
are eight
right Jack makes nine
drops your hand
we play next to a garden
of bones, copper plates
stone heads
the empty theatre languishing
strand across the alley
it wasn’t a great run but
it had its moments
you smile in the end
if you write about this
let me be sundance
he got the girl
cells dissolve
there’s voices in the trees
who say they know you
yes I nod
they aren’t lying but
it’s only half the truth
you peel the thick
rind of orange for tea
wink as I collect my hand
hunt in the fall
when the blood is thick
nineteen points
I throw
you smile
always
in this verse
you get the girl
I give my hand
Miss Fern Hill
The shiniest maybe
off a stage of don’ts
the way you stood cap cocked crooked
before you took
my hand to dance
All through sixth grade
I drew you tiny red
knotted in the bottom corner
of every green page in my cours de français
Hilroy notebook
Acquainting myself
with little origins of devotion
truth dropped its penny
between us
you knew young
you would never grow old
the shimmering weight of your head
forming a soft imprint in my young shoulder
your voice
a small ornate wound in me
For weeks through night spit
match lights we picked
our remains out of the spaces
between stones
played hide and seek well
into the dark. So small
I would never find you
in the garden over the fence
above me in the tree
the sky in your fingers
between laughter
in shadows of breath
I envied you
Until October red and shining
fading green
you hid outside
your little bone cage echoed
laughter without tears
Following you out of grace
I have made a tedious adult
I’m afraid
I tire of not finding you
untying red knots
into a song of innocence
in the bottom corner
of an empty page
This is today’s line.
This is today’s line
towed together by words
fallen out of yesterday’s mouth.
This is today’s line.
It should make me hundreds,
change the world.
This is today’s line.
Please remain behind the velvet rope.
Take no pictures.
This is today’s line.
Windowed
She meant no harm
sitting at my window
for hours
while I charted changing shades
falling moonlight
on gathered skin.
It never really mattered
if I was there
or not.
If I was there
she made love to me.
If I was gone she made tea
sat at the window.
I like it better when I was there
most days.
I asked her once what she saw.
Clear glass, she replied.
One evening
alone she threw a cup
leaving
a hole in the window.
Years passed
I wonder if all she saw
was a piece
of the cedar
outside
About the Author:
David Yerex Williamson is a college instructor and poet living in northern Manitoba. His recent works have appeared in the literary magazines Contemporary Verse 2, Prairie Fire, The New Quarterly and the Prairie Journal of Literature. David is a member of Manitoba Writers Guild, the League of Canadian Poets and is the founder of the Boreal Writers Group. When not writing or drawing, David shovels snow, cuts wood and chases his dogs along the historic Nelson River.