What Isn’t the Size of a Universe

I sit in a stone house
surrounding the earth

It is full of holes the light
comes through

There are days still
no body enters
into

They dawn without
being seen

They pass as in
a moment of discontainment

Above the doorway a lamp
from which the wax drips
form a field

a'sway with poppies

Padded Helmet

Yes that face full

of
no number
leaves a wanting

What's an eye
but one
appendage

What's a lip
but
the unlockable

gate
of an anger

I want my tears
to be

silver
spoons
in the poplars

william erickson is a poet from Vancouver, WA. His poems are in Sixth Finch, West Branch, Biscuit Hill, and elsewhere. He has two chapbooks, Monotonies of the Wildlife (FL 2022), and Nothing Lied Still on the Sea (forthcoming from Tilted House Press). william's debut collection arrives 2024 from April Gloaming.

Issue 08