I never promised you a rose garden.
—Joanne Greenberg
The writer enters
the room, real as a duck
in serious moccasins.
Her shoes declare, Here,
where we walk, is solid
ground. So a mallard would
stride and snip at
duckweed. She peers at us
and states, Creativity
builds bridges, insanity
forts. At night I wonder,
Do I live in a fort
and dream of bridges?
And I think of ducks,
how well they manage
in the uncertainty of water,
how splendidly the momentum
of their feet propels them
through the wavering of the light.
Faith Williams lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband and two dogs. Her poems have appeared in Earth’s Daughters, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Leaping Clear, Poet Lore, Nimrod, Kansas Quarterly, Tinderbox, MomEgg, and Antiphon, among others. She has served as a children’s librarian in a charter school as well as in the D.C. libraries. Earlier in her career, she taught English.
