Poetry by Joanna B. Johnson

Everything She Touches, She Touches Again

She is picking the skin off her fingers while she works, touching,

again, the cold stone. She kneels and stands, kneels, pauses

beneath the trees. She hovers between cracks in the sidewalk.

Wonder opened in me the moment I saw her. How is it we can part

ourselves down the middle like a ripe melon in one fluid motion,

guts on the floor, dripping compulsion? Make peace with yourself,

they say, make a home in your own skin. I am too busy for peace.

I am stretching and molting, rolling my tongue over pebbles

she offers me daily, clinking them against my teeth. I want

this full bowl, this tumble of blackberries, the stain, the mess.

I do not speak of forever, I speak of ever or never so fervor with fever,

a bouquet of limbs in the sheets. I flower beneath her. I came looking

for nothing at all and everything. I found the doves gorging themselves

on crumbs and dirty water, rubbing their chests grey along the fountain’s edge.

We watch them fight and drink, walk the long way home, she is examining

the trees to see if she can find the sky through their canopy. There is no right way

to love. No order to this disorder, just attempt after imperfect attempt

at noticing her noticing, at accepting each sweet berry blooming from her lips,

at walking side by side as she circles back to check the sidewalk cracks, again,

looks over her shoulder, taps the car windows. Even as her fingers bleed,

even as you kiss her eyes, hold her auburn crown in your shaking hands

and it burns. Keep walking, she will find you, again.

Calor

Little girl in Seattle, mushrooms sprouting

from damp palms, I grew an image of my future self.

Someday, somewhere, it will be hot. Hot like chile

seeds, like melt your flip-flips walking to the corner store.

I am dancing in the kitchen while I make tortillas,

the ones my mother taught me how to make,

whose mother taught her how to make,

whose father taught her how to make. I am

barefoot on tile, hair a mess, the air on fire.

In the picture that is now, la cocina está hirviendo,

my dress clings to my back, sweat trickles.

I am dancing, las tortillas están saliendo perfectas.

You bite at the curl of my neck; lips pull away taffy slow.

Frying, sizzle crack of summer. Swat a fly, shimmer

slip into you, against the sink, sink in. Home

can be a million different places, home

can be the curve of your breast, a mouthful of

honey, sticky masa, bubble of dough, home

can be this open window, this faulty gas stove,

this pan of burnt flour, these singed finger tips.

Joanna B. Johnson is a Spanish-English bilingual educator with a Masters in Social and Cultural Foundations of Education from the University of Washington. She was runner up for the 2019 Wasafiri/Queen Mary New Writing Prize in Poetry. Her writing can be found in Midway Journal, F(r)iction, Sky Island Journal and The Meridian (forthcoming). She works as a teacher and translator in Córdoba, Spain where she lives with her partner and their dog, Chispa.