William Erickson
THE CROWNS OF OUR HEADS
From behind,
we all look
as though we
are leaving.
But not all
of our parents
taught us to
leave, you see.
Some of our
parents taught
us only to look
like we are
leaving but
to really be,
and this is
where it gets
interesting,
to really be
the exact
opposite of
everything we
look like.
I am a planet.
I fall through
space repeatedly.
I am in utter
love and will
not stop ever
falling toward
the ground.
FALLING AND FALLING INTO THE CLOSING
Without knowing why,
I jump into the ravine
behind your house
in the evening, but
it's so deep I never
quite land, its deep
deepening at just the
right moment over
and over and over,
the knowledge of
surfaces receding like
an unblooming apple,
like a star in the morning,
how it finally succumbs
to the pressure of
my eyelids holding
everything inside
them at once.
Such friends I used to have.
Such longing and such friends.
William Erickson is a poet and memoirist from the Southwest of Washington State. His poetry appears or is forthcoming in West Branch, Bear Review, GASHER, and numerous other pubs. He is the author of a chapbook, Monotonies of the Wildlife (FLP). William writes in the company of his wife and his two rescue pups.