John Sibley Williams

Cargo ships slip past, unseen
but for the distant lights cutting

the fog into strips of flypaper.
Everything sticks there: to night

& to whatever night must have swallowed
to be this empty. I know

something must exist on the surface
of the river for all this coming & going

to mean what I need it to mean: that large, 
open-hearted explosions of willpower keep 

the dark at bay, the world in its place:
that this universe we’ve built from the bones

of older universes will roll along steadily
without us. Without us gravity is all falling;

I know without gravity our wings would have
burned up by now. My children & my trying

to justify all this light to them: silent & 
spellbound as earliest man at his fire or his god.