Editor’s Note: This is one of Katherine J. Williams’s poems included in the new anthology, “The Best of Delmarva Review 2008-2023,” to be released during the holidays.
Author’s Note: As children, whatever we observe becomes our definition of the world. Sometimes it takes years to understand the unacknowledged power of early assumptions. The significant losses I experienced colored my understanding of my life in ways I didn’t notice. Louise Glück’s words (which became the epigraph for my poem) were a wake-up call for me.
Arrogance
Someone like me doesn’t escape. Louise Glück
Peeking out from under our Norway Spruce
at the reign of siblings in a kingdom not my own,
or walking with my hand on the metal arm
of my mother’s wheelchair while others danced ahead,
it felt as though I lived in a land apart.
The day my young husband died
on a dingy sidewalk in New York, I recognized the territory.
Someone like me doesn’t escape became an answer
to a riddle I didn’t try to solve. The dailiness of couples,
the ease of others in the world—foreign currency I couldn’t spend,
and a strange comfort in this recognition.
But here I am at eighty, still standing, in a barely peopled field.
How could I have thought myself especially marked?
How not notice this brilliant living loneliness?
⧫
Katherine J. Williams, Associate Professor Emerita at The George Washington University, has published in journals such as Poet Lore, Passager, Broadkill Review, Delmarva Review, and anthologies such as The Widow’s Handbook, How to Love the World and The Wonder of Small Things. Several of her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her debut poetry collection, Still Life, was published by Cherry Grove Collections. Website: katherinejwilliamspoetry.com
The Delmarva Review has published annually from St. Michaels, Maryland for sixteen years. Its editors have selected the most compelling new creative nonfiction, poetry. and short stories from thousands of submissions nationwide (and beyond) for publication in print, with an electronic edition. At a time when many commercial and literary magazines have closed their doors or reduced literary content, the Review stood out to help fill the void in print. Selection has always been based on writing quality. Almost half of the writers have come from the greater Chesapeake-Delmarva region. As an independent literary publication, it has never charged writers a reading or publishing fee. The Delmarva Review is available worldwide from Amazon, other online booksellers, and specialty regional bookstores. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, support comes from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org.
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