"And Now Upon My Head the Crown" by Phillip B. Williams

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend January 2, 2018   And Now Upon My Head the Crown   Phillip B. Williams

1.                In the first place—I wanted him and said so when I had only meant to say. His eyes opened beyond open as if such force would unlock me to the other side where daylight gave reason for him to redress.                                                When he put on his shirt, after I asked him to keep it off, to keep putting off the night's usual end, his face changed beneath the shirt: surprise to grin, to how even the body of another's desire can be a cloak behind which to change one's power, to find it.   2.                                                               In the first place he slept, he opened the tight heat of me that had been the only haven he thought to give a name:   Is-it-mine? Why-you-running? Don't-run-from-it—as though through questions doubt would find its way away from me, as though telling me what to do told me who I was.            Copyright © 2018 Phillip B. Williams. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "This poem is part of a few 'failed sonnets' I'd written and revised out of their intended form. In this revision, I wanted the phrase 'in the first place' to move through two possibilities: the first instance and the first location. That there may be other readings is great. As for the title, I guess I was thinking less about success and more about regretting when one gets exactly what one has asked for." —Phillip B. Williams   Phillip B. Williams is the author of the book Thief in the Interior (Alice James Books, 2016), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a Lambda Literary Award. He currently teaches at Bennington College and lives in Bennington, Vermont.   Photo credit: Beowulf Sheehan Poetry by Williams   Thief in the Interior (Alice James Books, 2016) "a note on the body" by Danez Smith "The Erotic Is a Measure Between" by Kyle Dargan "Epithalamion" by Rickey Laurentiis January Guest Editor: Kaveh Akbar   Thanks to Kaveh Akbar, author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James Books, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about Akbar and our other guest editors for the year. Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038