Be sure, an aura is for forgetting
the temporary parts of others. It’s like
this little disc of capillary psychedelia
someone loaned me, like a pill less
than nothing, a placebo-shaped space.
Ask the senior lecturer. You come to see
numbness as rich distraction: new novelty
in phantom skin. New skin.
Dear pedestrians, I see your eyes, but suns
are setting in reverse where I think your jaws
should be. When you pass me among
swarms of cars I’m sure I’ll seem super
still. Record it. I won’t remember how.
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 