Issue 18: John Wilkinson
(Tom Raworth Memorial)

 Went Swimmingly

for Tom Raworth



Shiver of water flowers

on the lake and diminishes.


Crickets shiver in the

pooled air.


Spirit is a bone

spirit is a gland,

stack of pine cone tongues.

A whatnot having seeds

sublingual, can release,


the whole lot flip

up like tiles, spelling out

recurrent names,

all their ways were obtuse


until the west wind blew.

John Wilkinson teaches at the University of Chicago. His selected poems, Schedule of Unrest, were published by Salt in 2014, and subsequently a pamphlet, Courses Matter-Woven, appeared from Eqipage and in 2016 a U.S. collection, Ghost Nets, from Omnidawn.