ROOM:2.24
AFTER THE SKY RAINED MEN AND HOSPITALS CLOSED DOWN
by Katherine J. Williams
How as usual, water fills the kettle, slips into the cup. There is a door. The lock opens
with a click. Grey sidewalk lies long and flat. Slick in its plastic sheath, the newspaper slides,
tossed from a car that glides along alphabetical streets. Air, with only customary pollutants.
Crisp toast and jam. I’m old and cleaning closets to prepare for death. I find a yellowed note
with words crossed out, from my daughter when learning to write.
There they danced in an open field
until the sky rained men and automatic fire.
Last night they danced in an open field until the sky rained men and automatic fire. Right now it is seven hours later in Gaza’s rubble.
Bibliography and External Links
- Katherine J. Williams, art therapist and clinical psychologist, was the director of the Art Therapy Program at George Washington University, where she is now associate professor emerita. Her poetry has been published in journals and anthologies such as Poet Lore, Passager, the Northern Virginia Review, 3rd Wednesday, the Delmarva Review, the Broadkill Review, the Widows’ Handbook, How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, and The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal. Her first poetry collection, Still Life, was published in 2022. Some of her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
- Email: k.j.williams@verizon.net
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