Portland poet John Sibley Williams on the themes of mirrors and transportation.

      Photo by John Sibley Williams, on transportation. Vienna, Austria

Portrait(s)

– on Mirrors

I’ve spent so long validating in cloud-shapes
a more intimate portrait of myself

that in the bathroom mirror I now see
an elephant passing into a giraffe
passing into my father.

-JSB

Invitation(s)

– on Mirrors

Slipped beneath my wiper
an invitation to festivities
held in the empty factory
I just left
where once mirrors were assembled.

-JSB

Learning to Swim

– on Mirrors

Consider the sea a skewed mirror
and churning your uncertain limbs through it’s waves
an attempt to untangle light.

The comforting density of bone and future
mean little here.
The world is too light
to trouble with tomorrow,
too buoyant to sink with you.

So bring the background forward.
Kick up ripples and silt through that secret face.
Distort it into accuracy.

Where your faces finally meet
you will float without need for movement,
as in the Dead Sea
but without the need for salt.
Water can be your single taut thread—
reflecting.

Later there will be plenty of time
to learn to walk.

– JSB

Author Biography

John Sibley Williams is a poet and literary publicist residing in Portland, OR. He has a previous MA in Writing and presently studies Book Publishing at Portland State University, where he serves as Acquisitions Manager of Ooligan Press and publicist for Three Muses Press. His poetry was nominated for the 2009 Pushcart Prize and won the 2011 Heart Poetry Award. His chapbooks include A Pure River (The Last Automat Press, 2010), Door, Door (Red Ochre Press, 2011), Autobiography of Fever (Bedouin Books, 2011), From Colder Climates (Folded Word, forthcoming), The Longest Compass (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming), and The Art of Raining (The Knives Forks and Spoons Press, forthcoming). Some of his over 200 previous or upcoming publications include: The Evansville Review, RHINO, Rosebud, Ellipsis, Flint Hills Review, and Poetry Quarterly.