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Patricia Aya Williams
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The Scent of Jean Naté Makes Me Happy
after Ross Gay
There is not enough pretty
to paper over regret. Not enough hothouse
to keep every seedling safe. Woe
wends its way like a lost traveler. And yet,
the pink beeblossom fairy-sprinkled
around my yard, long-stemmed ballerinas
in four-petal tutus.
Once, a stranger on the street
gave me a dozen red roses.
I ask you: is there anything better
than a game of catch, or the salted rim
of a lemon drop martini? Today I heard
a disco song playing in a passing car,
and it was 1976 again.
Every day my neighbors parade their four
stately corgis through our streets.
O Orange Tootsie Roll Pops,
always partying at the bottom of my purse.
Cherry blossoms in March, I see you.
Movie theater popcorn, I love you.
When I, at age fifty, fell asleep on the floor
of my mother’s apartment, she covered me up
so tenderly…what more, really,
could I ask of this world?
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Patricia Aya Williams is the daughter of a Japanese-born mother and an American father. Her work has won a Red Wheelbarrow Poetry 3rd Prize and Steve Kowit Poetry Prize Honorable Mention, and her poems have appeared in many journals, including Sheila-Na-Gig, Jackdaw Review, The Thieving Magpie, Molecule, and Cathexis Northwest Press. Her chapbook, "Failure Goddess," is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. Her poetry collection, "Ichiban," was a finalist in the 2025 Swan Scythe Press Chapbook Contest and, in its full-length form, won the 2025 Concrete Wolf Louis Award. She lives in San Diego with her husband, Christopher, and their dog, Binxy.