To the junior high
bio teacher,
who encouraged
birds to enter
his childhood
bedroom
and treated us
as Pavlov’s dogs,
forever
poisoning
a certain register
of bell to elicit
mimetic cherry pies:
When now, if I must
professionally don
a commemorative t
over shirt and tie,
I pretend I am you.
In essence, you said,
the ones who evolve
are merely those
who happen to last
when everyone else
is busy failing
to survive.
Patrick Williams is a poet and academic librarian living in central New York. His recent work appears in publications including The Metric, Sundog Lit, 3:AM Magazine, and Heavy Feather Review. He is the editor of Really System, a journal of poetry and extensible poetics. Find him online at patrickwilliamsintext.com and @activitystory on Twitter.
A Quiet Courage 