THE GIFT

by john silbey williams

​

Tonight I will make something for you

not of jawbone & break & the usual

starlessness, not idled by half-meant

promise, a hammer handed down without

nails or wood to drive them through,

a childhood missing one or more parents: something the light must struggle to enter.

I swear I won’t kill anything to make it

durable; this time what lasts will last

despite me. The light will be its own.

The angles as true as I’m able to sand them.

No grief attached. No salvation or need for it.

Just a rough little box built from my bones

to keep the bones you’ll collect in.