Sample Poems by Katherine J. Williams

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Widows' Dream

My sister-in-law wears red, with
matching shoes, to the garden
party, a fundraiser for a forgotten
cause. Round tables set
with silver and flowers punctuate
the long lawn leading down
to the sea. And then the rains
start. At first a dark spot or two
stain the dresses and tables, then slabs
of water slam the scurrying guests
as they race to be among the few
under the tiny ornamental tent.
The rising surf resembles a Hiroshige
woodcut - carved blue, and green,
and edged in black. I am a bride,
moving through the crowd
in a long yellow slicker, wondering
if the waves will ever subside.

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Gloves

A thank you letter to my friend David Budbill

1950
My white gloves get dirty
feeding pigeons in Central Park
when Alice's father takes us
to Manhattan. He hails a cab
that drops us at Best & Company
to buy new gloves.
This is my first taxi, my first visit
to the store that has come
to me only as catalog,
my first escalator ride,
and the first time I discover
that something can be replaced
rather than washed.

1986
In the early light before trash
pickup in my home town, I rush
to sift through the musty trunk
hauled down from the attic
as I dismantle my parents' home.
My hand touches something soft,
like skin, only cooler. I lift one,
then two, long buttery gloves
lined with tiny buttons. A hint
of the owner's hand still lingers
in the shape of each slim finger.
I can't imagine my grandmother
wearing these. I only remember
her practical hands, resolute
in the grey dirt of Texas, coaxing
iris to bloom.

1993
Your handwriting on the lumpy
envelope greets me as I open
my door at the end of the day.
Out drops a huge pair of gloves,
mustard yellow and cream,
Willey's General Store
stamped red on the cuff. Unable
to make anything flourish
since Shedd died, I conjure
your rows of cabbages, glinting blue
beside a towering hedge of beans.
I slip my hands in the generous gloves,
remember your orderly piles of wood
stacked against a Vermont winter.

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Learning to Garden Alone

I open the door to a blast of birdsong.
What else is so close and unheard?

Tiny bubbles of soap from my bottle
plop on rose leaves laced by sawfly slugs,
pearl on the basil ringed in silver trails.
Carpenter bees bumble lazily, languid
bandits tunneling the gate to lay their eggs.

I plant myself on the creamy pea stone path,
pluck insurgent sprouts,
drop them in the propped brown bag.
Scooting forward, I see a sea of weeds
I can clear like the tide going out.

Yesterday the dirty rain gouged gullies
through the silken field.
Tuesday's heat will blanket me,
the rabbits that munch my mondo grass
before I wake, the whole complicated city.

But now, the air is so clear it could break.

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Still Life

Most mornings, I don't see the pillow
still fresh from yesterday's making.
On a night when the air is a thicket
of heat, I search for the cool pool
of sheet on the other side of the bed.
In this new economy the currency
is initiative. I set the table for seven,
specialize in the anthropology of three.
I'm an accidental citizen of a country
where things stay put; where I sleep
when tired. In the old dispensation,
travel meant time to be a tourist
in each other's bodies, foreign land
as background. Now, I practice
being a lover to the world, tracing
the shoulders of a new city, tasting
its breath. But tonight, my houseguest
calls his wife - late, laundry, tarmac -
the words like the cups and petals
in a Zubar'an painting,
intimate reminders
of a larger fleeting life.