Katherine Williams
The Devil Cruises PCH
There are ceramic hoofprints in the mud
where he pulled over on the blind curve six
miles back, to take a leak in the sage. If you don’t
believe me, go and look. Put your fingers in the wounded
earth. You don’t hear the acrid sight of rotten eggs
in your mouth? The Devil’s fifty-nine chevy convertible
with the bumper sticker that says Beam Me Up Scotty
has a bad muffler and a headlight out. The riders he’s after
aren’t sticking their thumbs out at the side of the road—
no, it’s the ones who are sick, really really sick,
of trying so hard to keep their marks inside the lines.
Whose crayons aren’t even in their hands. Whose hands
are making shadow puppets while their crayons
are busy conceiving purple children. It’s as if to say,
muses the Devil, human nature could be summed up
by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The Devil
has a wild love for the broken world. He turns it up loud
when the AM radio starts in on “You Light Up My Life:”
Baptists looks so trashy trying not to dance.
He is an iambic dancer, nimble hoof and club foot.
The Devil’s face is wistful, almost tender in the dashboard’s
greenish light. He thinks he might ask God for a reconciliation.
He closes his eyes and prays: Dear God, see that Four Eyes
up at the ramp, I was about to give her a lift.
What do you say I drop her off at your place instead of mine?
Maybe we could, you know, exchange a few pleasantries
over a burnt offering. I’d be glad to pick up a little blood
on the way over. Amen. The Devil can see a future
that his wizened old Nemesis can’t possibly imagine,
given the prophesies and all: the Devil will repent,
God will repent, and they will move in together with Mary
and Jesus and work out their differences. The Devil, looking
for a clearer radio station, runs his heap off the road.
Back at the curve, his high-fired hoofprints fill with rain.
Orthodoxy
if i am rays of blood fogging the night's glass
then you are a sequoia with coppery eyes
as the river overruns its velvet banks
if you are lost to the birds and fishes
then i am a breeze on your neck
as the rising tide washes the petroglyphs
if i am a lunatic spelling the walls purple
then you are a vein of garnet in a bed of slate
as the the south swell steals the sand
if you are a harvest of eyes and fingers
then i swallow mouthsful of earth in secret
as black rain stabs the lagoon's bright skin
if i am a siren howling in the mist
then you are a hammer broken in the earth
as the undertow churns up its ruined shells
if you rest in the hurricane's eye
then i turn to salt without looking back
as the wave smashes itself into foam
if we are ciphers spelling ethereal pursuits
then we are shadows echoing through a cave
as we lift our delicate hands through virtue's dust
Star-Blue Apple
The shadow cast by a star—
it's a dream, she said, as she was going blue,
In the dream of a different star.
The long blue shadow of the mother.
It's a dream, she said, as she was going blue,
I bit the apple, and that was that.
The long blue shadow of the mother.
The long blue shadow of the father.
I bit the apple, and that was that.
Fermented apple, sin of cobwebs, sin of paper.
The long blue shadow of the father.
Paper-cut denies the bloodied edge of words.
Fermented apple, sin of cobwebs, sin of paper,
beguiling as moonlit snowfall.
Paper-cut denies the bloodied edge of words.
The shadow of love is loss,
beguiling as moonlit snowfall.
In the dream of a different star,
the shadow of love is loss,
shadow cast by a star going blue.
Bio
Katherine Williams has authored three chapbooks, read at venues on both coasts, and received a Pushcart nomination. She lives on James Island, SC, with her husband, Richard Garcia, and their two dogs, Sully and Max.