Friend Shift
I’m trying to forgive my friend
who arrives like a bleeder
in an ambulance.
I should minimize
my exposure, as to a bad
virus or too much sun.
I’m always the shadow,
the “local talent,” sweeping
the floor, feting her
even when my new baby
had just come home.
I was gulping
cranberry ginger ales
in dazed thirst to restore
myself as she uncorked
another dark-green bottle,
put her thumb
in the deep punt
of the heavy bell-shaped
bottom, and poured herself
more red.
Copyright © 2018 Leslie Williams. This poem originally appeared in Kenyon Review, November/December 2018. Used with permission of the author.
Leslie Williams
Leslie Williams is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Matters for You Alone (Slant Books, 2024). Her book, Even the Dark (SIU Press, 2019), won the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition and was a finalist for the Julia Ward Howe Award.
Williams’s other honors include the Bellday Prize, the Robert H. Winner Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and Individual Artist grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She lives in Massachusetts.