PALMETTO POEM: Autumn Sunday

By Katherine Williams 

More general chatter outside now, than August.
Bird shapes a waltz: I-am-low, I-am-low.
Which birds make which sounds, I barely know.
My neighbor’s rooster sounds like Todos Santos.
A siren tears the morning into shreds.
Away down Folly Road a firetruck bellows.
Countless creatures make Live Oak their house—
wood-chipper grinds it into bigwig pockets.
The man beside me breathes, allergic to sleep.
I want an app that breathes the air around,
and smells what make of truck goes with what sound.
The man gets up to make a pot of tea.
Bells call the others in to break their bread.
Immortal spider, weave here, by my bed.

Pushcart nominee Katherine Williams of Charleston and Los Angeles has authored three chap books and given readings on both coasts. She has poems in Measure, Diagram, Spillway, Poemeleon, Rappahannock Review, and various anthologies. A community arts activist and surfer, she works in biomedical research and lives on James Island with her husband, poet Richard Garcia.