Everywhere at Once

William Greenway’s Everywhere at Once travels between muggy recollections of a Southern Baptist childhood, meditations on the otherworldly beauty of Wales, and commentary on life, death, and the revelry in between. In lines taut with bluesy musical precision, Greenway clearly demarcates the before and after, pivoting on his wife’s stroke and arduous recovery. “This is our new umbilicus, / like those childhood cans on a string,” Greenway declares in “Cells,” a poem that likens his beloved to “a preemie, struggling back / from your ‘fatal’ stroke / to be my wife again.” For every witty turn of phrase, a punch beyond the punch line stuns us with wisdom and transcendence. Whether we are witnessing “Feeding Time at the Fuel and Fuddle” or “The Path to Iskeroon,” the constant company of a wry conductor’s voice guides and provokes, paying tribute to the humble moments in life, and even the world “beyond / the reach of light and love and words.”