Joel F. Johnson Verse-Virtual 2016 April

April 2016

I'm a businessman and chronic English major who began writing poetry about ten years ago. Sometimes, I find myself switching back and forth between a spreadsheet and an unfinished poem. My first book of poems, Where Inches Seem Miles, was published by Antrim House at the end of 2013. In 2014, Kirkus Reviews selected it as one of the best books of the year in the Indie category. I've benefited from workshops at the Concord Poetry Center and from the journals which have published my work, including Rattle, Blackbird, and Salamander. My website, joelfjohnson.com, includes a few videos of my readings with images.

April Love Poem

Love is not lust or longing or languid afternoons of letting me
lower marinated asparagus spears into your mouth.
No, love requires work. More like planting asparagus than eating it.

Work is not love. Love is more like the beauty
of each emerald sheath as it tapers to claws of lavender leaves.
Work is hoeing and weeding, paying for the plot.

Love is part of life, so is work, but life is not work or love.
Life is snapping the green stalk from the gray-brown earth
or drizzling oil on the salted spears. When I say

May I feed you one, my dear? that laughing look you have,
those eyes, those eyebrows, your little impish chortle,
that look is love, that laugh is life, and worth all the work.