Poetry By Patricia Aya Williams

Phil Roeder CC



The Story That Fits


Her mother tries on stories about her daughter’s silence,
like trying on blouses in a fitting room. Blames her 

son-in-law. It’s all his fault. Turns their wedding picture 
so that his face is covered by the fake ficus lurking

at the edge of her fireplace mantle. Also, that friend
her daughter had in high school. The one who lied

about a sleepover so the two of them could go
to some boy’s party. No good. Never liked her 

shifty eyes. But really, didn’t things start to go wrong 
before that? The suspension in middle school for 

throwing a rock through the principal’s window. 
The school counselor said she’s acting out 

her grief. What bad luck, she thinks, to have 
a dead husband and an ungrateful daughter in a country 

full of gaijin. Somewhere she heard someone say 
bad seed. That explains it. It’s the seed that’s bad.

It’s because her daughter is not her daughter.
It’s because we never should have adopted her.

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Patricia Aya Williams is the author of ICHIBAN (Concrete Wolf Press 2026), her full-length poetry debut collection and winner of the 2025 Louis Award for Poetry,  and Failure Goddess (Dancing Girl Press 2026). Her poems appear in Whale Road Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Jackdaw Review, Bicoastal Review, and many other journals. Patricia grew up in San Jose, California, daughter of a Japanese-born mother and an American father. She lives in San Diego with her husband and dog.  

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