11-15-2023
Luke Johnson
QUIVER
I slurp a sad boy’s fingers
nibble where the skin
has peeled & pull him out
to spin inside pond splash
powdered light. I study
the soft flesh, nip to pry
the past apart. Salve
the place his mother
maimed, a map with oil
& skillet, prayed
while watching him squirm. Later,
a sip of soup lifted
like an impartation,
I drool because the fat
has fallen off the bone
fondled my throat
with fennel. Fennel & quail.
Quail & floodplain. Salt,
mistsilk, spit. Their
fragile bodies bagged
then hung to dry
headless over drip
pans. Like this, he says: spoon
in his scarred hand––quivering.
THE UNDOING
Jacob leaves a stick of sage
smoldering on an abalone
ashtray & skims his hand
across a bath filled with dahlia
their copper flames sinking
as the steam furls them under
like smashed faces
& fastens them to the tile.
He thinks of the boy he beat
with a stick by the barn
the boy who nearly died
the day his daddy found
him fondling men
beneath the bleachers
for forty dollars
& tied him to a tree
all night in wretched rain,
the river frothing close.
Jacob unsnaps his belt
unties his boots, pulls
his pants below the waist
& stands in front
of a foggy mirror
to hold his flaccid cock.
He slackens his jaw
teethes his tongue
mutters the name
of the boy who begged
barely able to breathe.
Outside the snow has fallen
& the sky chalked
& black ice barreled
stubborn dogwoods, rooting
for warmth underfoot.
Jacob empties himself.
Submits into the salted bath
to freely float unbodied
& begins to weep, his
wails a wounded mare.
The sort that goes on & on
as it’s picked apart by birds
then spilled into
the sequined snow
the wind a volley of echoes.
JEREMIAH
This poem
has a house and a field
and behind the field
a feral grove
of olives and lemons,
where a woman
once laid a baby
on a stone
and sprinkled gas in its hair
wept as it rose into flames.
Her lover stood
a few feet back
begging a bucket
of water, anything,
but she bound
his lips with a kiss
and took his hand
swallowed
his sorrow in bed.
This is a poem
more about rain.
About the sudden gales
that woke
in the field
and shook the house
threatened
to tear it away.
How the woman
would not
wake from sleep
as hail cracked windows
ripped through fence
rattled the backdoor
with rage. And how
her lover––a man
no older than forty––
fell on his face
and begged his boy
back from sky.
How the boy
would not come
how sky
would not answer
how light
was left swallowed
in the static of rain.
How a rope and a rafter
and a chair kicked loose,
brought him his sweet Jeremiah,
swaddled in cloth
and still kicking.
-from Quiver, Texas Review Press, selected by Assistant Editor, Karen Carr
Luke Johnson is the author of Quiver (Texas Review Press), a finalist for The Jake Adam York Prize, The Levis Award, The Vassar Miller Prize and the Brittingham. His second book A Slow Indwelling, a call and response with the poet Megan Merchant, is forthcoming from Harbor Editions Fall 2024. You can find more of his work at Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Narrative Magazine, Poetry Northwest and elsewhere. Connect on Twitter at @Lukesrant or through email: writerswharfmb@gmail.com.
