luke johnson
I shuttered my mouth
& sated silence
felt by burning my skin.
Let each smoke
sit a little too long
leaving behind a black divot.
*
Each spot a wellspring
opened to ink
spotted the soft of my leg.
A cluster of stars
left sap-like & sticky
quaking like fly nests below.
*
Daddy gnawed spit
on mom’s suckled breasts
dosed her blood with H.
Slapped her back
& bit her hips
bruised from the foot to the spine.
*
He made me stutter
speak with a drawl
slur the name of the Lord.
Pleasure myself
on the brindle rug
cry myself to completion.
*
I carried a cross
in the palm of my hands
muted the devil, refused.
Delivered in short
a hacked open prayer
paused when spirits said home.
*
Mom emerged
with eyes like a rat
receded into a salt bath.
Asked if I’d like to shampoo
her hair then wipe
deep into the wounds.
*
I softened a sponge
& filled it with salve
prayed as I pressed
out the pus. Then wove
a needle warmed
from a flame & finished
with expired glue.
***
Luke Johnson lives on the California Coast with his wife and three kids. His poems can be found or forthcoming at Kenyon Review, Florida Review, Narrative Magazine, Nimrod, Thrush, Valparaiso Review, Tinderbox, Cortland Review, Greensboro Review and elsewhere. He was a finalist for the Pablo Neruda Prize and his chapbook, :boys, was published by Blue Horse Press in 2019.