April 2017
Joel F. Johnson
joelj339@gmail.com
joelj339@gmail.com
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 where I've attempted to combine a reading with appropriate images.
Engagement
It isn’t how the low winter sun etches
each pebble in a collar of shadow, each
bearing witness, stone for stone,
to the fierce demand of its light.
Or how a crow big as a flag
grips the stripped tree and caws in sets of five,
the sprockets of its tail feathers
crescents of absence against the sky.
Or how she turns, laughing,
the sun sweeping her face like a searchlight,
leaving it in shade. It’s less than that.
The return to a house made strange. Her wet boots
where he never leaves his, her coat on his hook.
The coffee she makes without asking.
Previously published in Communion
It isn’t how the low winter sun etches
each pebble in a collar of shadow, each
bearing witness, stone for stone,
to the fierce demand of its light.
Or how a crow big as a flag
grips the stripped tree and caws in sets of five,
the sprockets of its tail feathers
crescents of absence against the sky.
Or how she turns, laughing,
the sun sweeping her face like a searchlight,
leaving it in shade. It’s less than that.
The return to a house made strange. Her wet boots
where he never leaves his, her coat on his hook.
The coffee she makes without asking.
Previously published in Communion
©2017 Joel Johnson
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