No Hands

By John Sibley Williams



Regardless, the wheel steadies on.
Fields blur into other fields. Things
 
are born & unflower or deflower
every acre. The highway moves
 
without being moved by. You & I
& what of home fits in a pickup bed.
 
In the vacuum of passage, night
animals go about mapping bodies,
 
singling out the weak. We are failing
what we fail to notice. An entire city
 
in the rearview burning with torches,
hunger, dead flags reborn. We call this flight
 
to wash our hearts of it. We call these wings.
Courage. Progress. Agency. No hands yet
 
the road just keeps going — for us. Again
we’ve left before another’s fire becomes our own.