BRIGHT AND DANGEROUS
by Roberta Williams
I birthed a stillborn in the dream. In the morning, I named her Blaise, meaning lisp or stutter. You're
not a sad person, my lover said to get me out of bed, just like he said, rivers can't be motionless. But
the Olentangy is stagnant. At the pebbled edge, flies circle a deer. A tattered body is bloated.
​
What should a person do when something dies in them? I ask a daylily burning behind the carcass. Should I
pluck you, preserve you before you die on your own? Should I press you, dead and vibrant, between pages?
​
The Delaware tribe named this river stone for your knife stream, and every day I walk along the bank
until my neck and back hurt from bending, from collecting sandstone, quartzite, granite, and shale.
What I really want is a knife for the lilies, bright and dangerous, stammering in wind.
HOW TO RECYCLE
by Roberta Williams
Start basic, get chummy with the blue bin:
toss JIF jars, cartons of expired Greek yogurt,
Time Warner Cable offers, and bottom-shelf
bottles of Malbec. Soon you'll convert V-necks
into macramé hanging planters and piles
of 5K-tees into mini-headbands with nautical knots
for friends' baby showers. Alone at night,
you'll Netflix and latch hook rugs from strips
of ill-fitting dresses. By February, your closet
will be pristine, and your homespun mat
will greet snowy boots. When your litter-scoop
breaks, eat three bowls of Cheerios and cut
a shovel from the empty milk jug. Bottle caps
can be candles for your Buddhist friend's morning
meditations. The busted ukulele you neglected
to learn can be tacked on an elm for robins,
cardinals, and small yellow finches. Exchange
morning sadness for more—for bluebells
placed on strangers' windshields or Dad's
bright laughter on the phone. Let in back-road wind
past unfamiliar cornfields to some podunk town
with surprisingly good coffee and strawberry
French toast. Find the giant sycamore by the roadside,
shedding at daybreak to grow even more.
DROUGHT YEARS
by Roberta Williams
This year I've killed two succulents,
English ivy, and a tufted cactus
reminiscent of an old man with wispy hair.
​
My brother says I'm more
destructive than the Sahara—
but he forgets laundry, forgets meals
​
just like I do. Forget your feelings,
my brother advised the summer I discovered
panic attacks. They aren't reality.
​
Believing him seemed to reduce
us to family echoes, seemed inescapable.
Grandpa smiles only when working
​
in his garden, pulling weeds between clusters
of poppies and nibs of asparagus.
In my family, we tend only what is concrete.
​
When Grandma was a teenager, her father's barn
burnt down. He was never the same after that,
she said, quieting when Grandpa pattered
​
into our kitchen, feet thudding linoleum
in faded socks. In drumbeats and silences,
I keep finding my mother alone
​
in her study, surrounded by piles
of books, clicking keys to prune pages
and pages of words she won't let me read.
​
A fern hangs in her bright windowsill,
withered but not yet dead.
ABOUT ROBERTA
Roberta Williams studied English at Ohio State University and graduated in 2016. She has been a barista for ten years (which may or may not feel like a curse). Her poetry deals with origins and incorporates lots of plant-life indigenous to Ohio.