Issue 103

Three stories by Diane Williams, master of the form.

To sing of origins is to set a course
to anoint a present where cows and angels
cowherds and shepherd kings
all shine in heaven’s light

That first morning, I remember
clinging to a table’s edge—
both legs jackhammering the white

linoleum floor tiles—praying for
my benzodiazepine to finally,
finally kick in.

The American self contains multitudes: believers, unbelievers, the proudly heterodox, the meekly agnostic, conscientious objectors, freethinkers, vegans, and still other varieties of spiritual aspirant too obscure or holy to name. In this country’s perpetual adolescence, it can feel impossible to bring these ways of being together into a single whole . . .

. . . faith in the faith that the way the story ends
is not the story—

May some mercy find them both.

Deacon Nkosi, a member of the church, told the newspaper,
“The pastor taught us about faith on Sunday last week.”

I don’t exist independently of the world around me, that all the boundary lines I like to think keep me separate from others are in some sense imagined and temporally bound. I can’t exist without others. And I may not be the hero of my story.  

Maybe I was too bus-lagged to haggle over
the price of a portent, much less a cheap
souvenir. . .

Bible open. On her lap. Same page for years.
Her white hair. Spooky red ink. Deuteronomy.

There are so many ways to fly and walk
in place I never move.