Fail Me

John Sibley Williams

like an empty-handed pallbearer. Like a child
lost in the long halls of a closed school,

when even arithmetic & history have bedded down
for the night. No, not like that at all. More

like the old borders scribbled out on an updated map.
What was once a country

made whole again in erasure. Like a minnow being
eaten by something larger. We all secretly cherish

both sides of that hunger. Dear lover/reader/parent/god, if,
like everyone, I begin my dying with questions, remember

to lie to me. Say all borders are man-made. Each failing
body a future star. Say light

& say there’s a light that follows it.