Katherine J. Williams
Blackout
Clinton, New York, 1942
His tweed coat was scratchy and smelled like Chesterfields and yesterday. Outside
the window, snow lazed on late afternoon air until he pulled the blackout curtain,
drawing the room close and grey. He’d be back to read to me, he said.
What did I know of the rings of worlds that swirled around me – crib, room, house,
nations, oceans, sky? I curled beneath the velvet sliding shapes of dream, unaware
of him, pacing the neighborhood, checking that each window showed no light.
Later, feet stamping off the wet. A growing slice of light, snowflakes melting on shoulders
that seemed to fill the room. I reached up – then screamed. Who was in my father’s coat, bending
over my crib, blank and frosted circles where I used to find his eyes?
“This poem is based on a memory from around 1942. My father did not go to war, perhaps because of his poor eyesight, or because my mother was a paraplegic, or because the small college where he taught remained open, though diminished, and was attended by members of the military who studied languages or other subjects relating to their jobs. A strict blackout was enforced by civilians such as my father who walked the streets in the bitter upstate New York nights, looking through his frosted glasses for forbidden lights.” —Katherine J. Williams
Katherine J. Williams, art therapist and clinical psychologist, was Director of the Art Therapy Program at the George Washington University, where she is now Associate Professor Emerita. Poems have been published in journals such as Poet Lore, The Northern Virginia Review, Passager, Broadkill Review, Delmarva Review, Christian Century, 3rd Wednesday, and anthologies such as The Widow’s Handbook, How to Love the World and The Wonder of Small Things. Several of her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. In October 2022, her debut poetry collection, Still Life, was published by Cherry Grove Collections. Her website is www.katherinejwilliamspoetry.com.