To a Fault
by John Johnson
Sorry I missed you. I was only just here, throwing water at the ocean. It’s how I keep the doors open. “Buy like an angel,” the sign says. But I worry about the business, its many tandems. Who was it said everything’s already been said? We misjudge, and the little psychosis ceases. You and I, though, we’re fingernail and flesh, making space in our suitcase. You can count on it: the heart’s ejection fraction knows something about travel, where ends meet. What I mean is, volume is not the same as gain. Here we are, another drought year, creek beds broken, the deer eating coffeeberry. Even the manzanita is having second thoughts. Toward the end of summer we’ll have to shout above jets, then look where they’ve been, not where they are. Fortunately, we take the ocean with us. And childhood is inexhaustible. Anyway, we should try to arrange things if we can. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.
John’s poems and translations have appeared in many print and online journals. He is co-translator, with Terry Ehret and Nancy J. Morales, of Plagios/Plagiarisms, the poetry of Ulalume González de León, winner of the 2021 Northern California Book Award for poetry in translation. You can find more of John’s work at poemalog.tumblr.com.