#MIDDLEBURY
Hunter
Phillip B. Williams
When you were mine though not
mine at all permanently, just a body borrowed
without permission, a body interrupted,
interruptive –
the sky opened like a secret in a mouth
mouth with a word in it
word with an arrowhead in its flank: Love, small
creature it was
crying in the night beneath me
About this poem
“I wanted to write a short poem after having worked on a 14-page poem for quite some time. In some way killing or at least wounding ‘love,’ with the ‘v’ being the arrowhead, seemed like an appropriate way to move on with my life.” – Phillip B. Williams
About Phillip B. Williams
Phillip B. Williams is the author of “Thief in the Interior” (Alice James Books, 2016). He teaches at Emory University and lives in Decatur, Ga.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2016 Phillip B. Williams. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
