Everything Must Go

I keep falling asleep & waking
Up & falling asleep & sometimes

Dreaming & waking up & there
You lay next to that lamp we click

On & off as cats sit in a north facing
Window that sometimes lets in sun-

Light & moonlight & dove sounds
& oak pollen & here I am pouring cold

Coffee into a pint glass, going over the
Night’s dream in which I’m standing

In a kitchen not unlike my own, pouring
Cold coffee into a pint glass & telling

You or someone very much like you
About this store I found way north

Of town & how it stocks these lost things
(My first pair of glasses, grandfather’s

Jacket, that cheap camera stolen
On the Paris Metro, Charlie Daniels

Saddle Tramp on vinyl, a Styrofoam
Gliding toy shaped like a bald eagle,

Daddy’s cotton scouting boll weevil
Notebooks, mother’s class ring slipped

From her finger the same day she met
Pat Boone on a senior trip to NYC in ’59,

Those mountain bikes we forgot to lock)
& so I’ve cleaned out the shelves & I’m

At the cash register reaching for my wallet
But the alarm clock goes off, set to chime

Church bells, which is funny because
I stopped believing a long time ago.

About Harold Whit Williams

William's first poetry collection, Waiting For The Fire To Go Out, is available from Finishing Line Press, and my poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Atlanta Review, Oxford American, Oklahoma Review, Slipstream, Tulane Review, and other fine journals. Also, in my spare time, I am lead guitarist for the critically acclaimed power-pop band Cotton Mather.

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