It’s as if the rain is falling up, the way lightning
is the afterimage of where the light has been—
see it rising? like the past or groundlessness or
a groundless past, which isn’t to say untrue, for
even though I’m stranded on a flooding highway,
the sweet delirium of time unconstellated, however
unsound, is a semblance of sanctuary. Squall of
winter clouds. Rage of Southern wind. To the east,
wild horses canter toward groves of pine. Kicking
and bucking, two hang back, then stand face-to-face,
neither play nor battle, but something in-between:
their glistering hides (blood bay, blue-black) veer
in a lonely motet—new shades for an older music
—as the words, unloosed, now canter side by side.
Korey Williams grew up in suburban Chicago and studied at Illinois Wesleyan University, the University of Oxford, the University of Chicago, and Cornell University. His work appears in Assaracus, Winter Tangerine, The Offing, Narrative Magazine, and elsewhere. He is currently a Lecturer at Cornell University.