Luke Johnson
Floodghost
Mother couldn’t manage
what sated me, so she prayed:
sought in silence
a substance that’d sooth,
something familial with grace.
I groaned. Broke bodies
over blacktop’s pane, a bottom
less well of blood. At seven
I smothered a frog & fed each leg
to my quivering sister
laughed while she choked out its skin. At twelve, I
pulled a pistol from under
the vacant shed & shoved
its shudder to a schoolboy’s temple, teased
while he wept in his piss.
& yet all along a Psalm, a satchel
of prayer—a song. Mother making
contracts with the sky, while I
tore its pages to light a fire, warm
my hands around it. Radiant blue. Red
from a faraway pine—
Luke Johnson lives on the California Coast with his wife and three kids. His poems can be found or forthcoming, in Kenyon Review, Florida Review, Narrative, Nimrod, Valparaiso Review, Tinderbox, Greensboro Review, Cortland Review, and elsewhere. He was a Finalist for both the Pablo Neruda and Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Awards, and completed an MFA at Sierra Nevada College. His chapbook :boys, released with Blue Horse Press in 2019.
Return to January 2020 Edition
Mother couldn’t manage
what sated me, so she prayed:
sought in silence
a substance that’d sooth,
something familial with grace.
I groaned. Broke bodies
over blacktop’s pane, a bottom
less well of blood. At seven
I smothered a frog & fed each leg
to my quivering sister
laughed while she choked out its skin. At twelve, I
pulled a pistol from under
the vacant shed & shoved
its shudder to a schoolboy’s temple, teased
while he wept in his piss.
& yet all along a Psalm, a satchel
of prayer—a song. Mother making
contracts with the sky, while I
tore its pages to light a fire, warm
my hands around it. Radiant blue. Red
from a faraway pine—
Luke Johnson lives on the California Coast with his wife and three kids. His poems can be found or forthcoming, in Kenyon Review, Florida Review, Narrative, Nimrod, Valparaiso Review, Tinderbox, Greensboro Review, Cortland Review, and elsewhere. He was a Finalist for both the Pablo Neruda and Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Awards, and completed an MFA at Sierra Nevada College. His chapbook :boys, released with Blue Horse Press in 2019.
Return to January 2020 Edition