84 The Meadow The Confession John Sibley Williams Forgive me this small box of synonyms borrowed from older tongues. & forget the telephone game we played last night when only my voice carried, intact. That there are no rules to it all, just instinct & mistranslation & loving our slice of the world, by which I mean where trespass confuses with own. That none of the bones the river coughs up are mine. Never mind that heights are measured in hands & distance by the chasm between hand & reached-for star. There’s no room for stars here. No barbed fence someone hasn’t raked herself over so her son can live that much closer to hope, shelter. Forgive me the bullet a stranger lodged in your language, that when I say the body I mean it abstractly. Show me the heart a mother must eat so her son won’t suffer our tomorrows. Plant it in my hands. Let’s agree something should grow there. Let’s pass should around this circle of ears & mouths & see if it changes in the end. Never mind that it always changes in the end. Forgive me the stars I don’t have to reach for. These bones that still aren’t mine. & the box. This small box.
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