On Waking One Day in October

This day breaks without a name
to mark it from any other. It sneaks
light along my window’s dark edge,
slinks onto my stage for dreams. 
I linger -- savor the impossible -- 
feats untamed by gravity,
encounters unmoored from time. 
I stretch -- like a timid guest --
fingertips to toes, delicately test
my comfort in this body 
brittle now from use, misuse, 	
disuse. I push 			
up, sit on the edge 			 
of my bed				
not yet ready for today.

Surface Waves 


As a father is dying 

in Key Biscayne,

peaks crest 	

toward shore. Tangles 

of seaweed, broken shells

-- now polished smooth -- litter

the path.  Each wave pairs

with its distant metronome, pushes

shimmering white before muddled 

green.  One wave folds in on itself, 

collapses before landfall. 

Another races to dry sand, 

a darker trace 

all that remains. 

*poems by JC Williams accompanying with one-line drawings by Cassia Williams-Rogers.

About the Poet and Artist:

JC Williams began writing poetry after careers in philosophy and law. In 2022, she participated in AWP’s Writer to Writer Program working with poet Jehanne Dubrow.  JC’s poems have appeared in Months to Years and Songs of Eretz.  Her experiences growing up in the South find their way into many poems.  In addition to poetry, her loves are her partner, their daughter, and tai chi. She currently lives in Maryland.

Cassia Williams-Rogers is a first year MD/PhD student at Washington University in St. Louis, MO.  The one-line drawings accompanying these poems are part of an on-going collaboration with JC Williams for a chapbook in which all poems are illustrated and all of the illustrations are connected with one line. The illustrations were drawn by hand using an Apple pencil (2^nd Gen), an iPad Air (5^th Gen) and GoodNotes5. Cassia is passionate about baking, genetics, and her two cats, Yuri and Adi (named after RNA bases U and A).

The post Poetry and Art by JC Williams & Cassia Williams-Rogers first appeared on Prachya Review.