A Twitter Sonnet
by Danielle P. Williams
I just watched a video on Twitter of a
Wave reaching up and tearing the clouds.
The retweet read: I’ll say this again
The ocean is a terrifying place and I thought:
What peace to touch what floats above you.
And every day of your life you’re just looking up
Wishing for more. But, what strength. To be a
Redeeming force. To take back the sky. The thick
Veined wave skimmed the lowest cloud as if scooping
Foam from your favorite morning drink. The bitter
Bite back of something too intrusive. The cooling
Calm of what’s too soft to really understand. Two
Worlds becoming one for the first time. Against the odds.
And I couldn’t help but wonder if that was the sky’s first taste.
Danielle P. Williams is a Black and Chamorro writer and spoken-word artist from Columbia, South Carolina. She has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets 2021, with fellowships from Palm Beach Poetry Festival, The Watering Hole, and The Alan Cheuse Center for International Writers. She completed her B.A. in Arts Administration at Elon University in 2016, and her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at George Mason University in 2021. Her poems were selected for the 2020 Literary Award in Poetry from Ninth Letter. You can find her work in Juked Magazine, ANMLY, Hobart, Flypaper Lit, Barren Magazine, and elsewhere. She is currently based in Los Angeles. For more, visit http://daniellepwilliams.com/