From Game

VERMEER

   —But a face in a painting looks at us too.
       —Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, II, vi

No, not the Vermeer who painted a woman,
Head tilted into light as she pours light
Into a milkbowl beside bread, not the Vermeer
Who painted the young woman you walk toward,
Her eyes wide, lips parted, because she wants you
To come closer so you can see yourself
In the shining globe of her earring dangling,
Not the Vermeer whose uncertain young woman
Dressed in red silk seeks your advice
About the wine a man urges her to drink
While brooding Temperance looks on.
Drink the wine, you say. But this isn’t about
The Vermeer of Delft. This is about
The Vermeer of Pella, Iowa, the Vermeer
Of trenchers and tree chippers and stump cutters,
The Vermeer of tub grinders and power mulchers,
Of hay balers and core saws and rock drills,
The Vermeer sitting yellow and abandoned,
Glistening beside the highway Sunday
As you speed past, the Vermeer on Monday
Hard at work when traffic stalls
And you crawl past close and she
Adjusts her hardhat and looks right at you
As the branch she releases becomes,
In this beatific morning light, dust.

That Vermeer.

Online Publications

• Plume: “Winter Morning” and “Ceci N’est Pas un Pot“
• Plume: The Poets and Translators Speak (last one)
• Live Encounters: “Late Thunderstorm,” “3:00 A.M. Song,” “Thoth,” “Euryphaessa,” and “Intrasocial Disunity in Neoliberal Economies”
• VerseVille: “Grand Bay”

Interviews

Words on a Wire (radio broadcast and podcast)

Host Daniel Chacón speaks with writer M.L. Williams about his book Game

Published November 27, 2022

KTEP (UTEP NPR station, short) version here.

Words on a Wire, full Podcast here.

MXDTV interview by Marc Delgado, August 11, 2022

Reviews

• Dean Poling Book Review