Four Poems by Luke Johnson

Memory

of my dad
on the deck

with a blunt
& bottle of rum.

watch him
bop his

skinny hips
to Patsy Cline

then smile
when he sees

me staring
from my

bedroom window,
a loon

in the foreground
lifting.

*

Memory

of my nana
holding

a single pearl
in lavender light,

then spinning
it over and over,

as if somewhere
inside it

a whisper
is trapped,

the voice
of her stillborn son.

*

Memory

when my
sister was a pig

and the next
a snake,

and no matter
what the pastor

prayed,
would switch

each week
to a new animalia,

and sneak
out into the dark.

*

Memory

of dad
threshing brush
with a sickle

and the first
spark first snarl,

when smoke
would rise
like twisting

columns
from tinder

and carry his
baritone,
each dumb joke,

over
neighboring oaks

and once,
after his
brother died

of heart disease,
when both of us

wandered
acres deep
for chantarelles

and the chill
in the air a bouquet

of scalpels,
the way he’d reach
then I’d reach back,

the rain
our ritual song.

*

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