William Waters is an associate professor, in the Department of English at the University of Houston Downtown. Along with Sonja Foss, he is coauthor of Destination Dissertation: A Traveler’s Guide to a Done Dissertation. His research and teaching interests are in writing theory and modern grammar.
Ezra
For Burt Hatlen
After all that thunder,
You remained
Still:
A room after
Mozart ceased;
A room still
Without distraction;
A space
Filled
With shadows.
I think of you
I think of you
though this hasn’t happened--
thirty-five,
alcoholic, and alone.
I think of you
closed
in a room
in the
city
--tugging hard
a beer. -- turning
back again
to your father,
too drunk to get out
of the flames. Identified
by teeth. Your mother,
a picture taken
before you learned
to walk. -- your
past.
I think of you,
almost empty,
pushing hard
the typewriter
keys...
your last effort
an explanation.
