Angela Williams

Angela Williams Poems

Angela Williams Biography

Poems have appeared in GSU Review, Mississippi Review, and other journals.)

The Best Poem Of Angela Williams

Almost Savages

Almost Savages
or “He Called them Moonfish”

The only blue I’ve seen for weeks is this body,
the color of my winter sky in plumage; a jay

fresh-killed for my assumption of doubt
for spring’s awakening. And it will be

months until there is haven again for any of us.
Months until warmth is pliant in lake beds when

small fish will scatter away from my steps.
How many of them would the river hold

if you squeezed the banks together for an instant?
Each April I think of my father’s smelt runs. The inky

rimed artesian creek lined shoulder to shoulder three
men deep pressing in with nets and lanterns. Kerosene

hung in the piercing air. The rush of silver thicker than
a slot machine’s payment. He’d bring his pails into

the kitchen before sunrise, line the table with yesterday’s
paper, hand us each a shining knife, and pour the smelt

onto the table. Some still alive, their flat eyes breathing.
It is not a field of poppies, this death. Nor is it the shadow

of a black willow, its head downcast unless the wind builds
coming in from the big lake. Steeling against such cold takes

as much as hurtling upstream upon consideration of futility.
Those willow leaves now, damp as nervous fingers splayed

across the fractured sidewalk are the jay’s feathers
scattered from the cats’ elation. The headless corpse,

wanton by the cellar door, their usual modus operandi.
First blood at the throat, then sliced clean up the belly.

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