I went for a walk with the dog & thought I’d forgotten her leash as it sat heavy in my hand. I blew my breath into the trees so green they are blue, but they were only bending to welcome the wind. I watched the sky spit out stars like summer seeds & still felt the pull of tide like it was a wrecking made for me. it is like I swear I went to sleep & in the night the whole house cracked its knuckles so that every decoration moved to a different & better place I’d never thought of. then the whole neighborhood came by to gift us things that said yes, you could never have done anything so jewel-like. did you know you helped me to learn to smile at myself in the mirror? taught me a few tactics to catch the bird in the attic of my brain that parroted all the dirt things I’ve ever seen or done or felt by someone else’s clumsy hand. I don’t think I can give an honest to god love poem; maybe if I forgot how much it bakes to think of you anywhere but happiest. maybe I am crying because I found a dictionary inside me that lists stay as what love is saying. I woke up in the hallway, woke up in bed, woke up in this house newly manicured & you were here, here, always right next to me. my bones unbreak from such a thing & I cannot give that a name. my feet ache. same nightmare as before. the dog needs to go out again & I love you.
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Sally J. JohnsonSally J. Johnson received her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where she served as Managing Editor for the award-winning literary journal Ecotone. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in the Collagist, Bodega, the Pinch, and elsewhere. Named the winner of the 2015 Poetry International Prize judged by Carol Frost, Sally J. Johnson has also been honored as a finalist in Sycamore Review’s Wabash Prize for Nonfiction and won Madison Review’s Phyllis Smart-Young Prize for Poetry. She is an educator and writer living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Find her online: @sallyjayjohnson. |