Smiles
By Todd Williams
On a Monday afternoon,
after six hours of chemo,
you park in the driveway
and honk the horn for the kids
who run into your arms
and clutch you by
your late autumn coat
that’s grown too big
in the months intervening.
Ten minutes of smiles
before your feet start to falter;
ten years later, your memory
reflected in theirs.
Todd Williams is a former South Dakota journalist living in the Middle East. Winner of the 2021 South Dakota State Poetry Society chapbook contest, he published his first collection of poetry, Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear (SDSPS, 2021). His poems, which have been featured in a variety of online and print magazines and anthologies, focus on loss, dislocation, and the expatriate experience. He is a 1989 graduate of Principia College with a BA in English/journalism and mass communications.