Stephen Williams
Owl Eyes
Something owl-eyed lives just beyond events. Star-strewn region. Shimmering blue like a false fashion.
Our village moonlight is different from all other moonlight. I love to smell the cool air around the mouth of the well.
You are in the rabbit's fur. All night you harvest cold armfuls of sleep. And in the hour of your death.
In every corner of their dominion, ghosts wear hairshirts. Your spiritual practice yields an especially wrinkly cortex over time, good for abstract thought and introspection.
It's written on everyone's faces: the four elements are winning out. My brother will only go outside wearing a bee suit. My cousin has a juggernaut for a liver. My sister’s pregnant, my brother does systems analysis, my cousin’s in jail, my other sister does event planning, is married to a tattoo artist, they have a home in Naperville but go to church in Wheaton, and wait for the end of things.
A wind roughs the trees.
Did you hear the one about the angel who was afraid of the sound of his own trumpet?
No slant, no tint to the mind's light, it comes from almost nowhere. Surprising the mountains.
Skies are clearing up, and temperatures are falling. Refugees are heading to the armory for warmth.
A ghost gets a facelift. Water is turning into air. Mist is turning into light.
This is how the weaver chose to make himself seen.
No word from the authorities on what form the "sacrifices" would take.
You can swallow anything.
There is nothing in God or nature like thought.