Every Conifer’s a Mood
On a hill
where someone planted you:
needles skyward
sensate iterations of self
open to a too-gray heaven
Or lone
at the edge of the yard
trailing a thousand gestures
toward the ground
You blue
You flag
You crowned
with upright cones
In the ravine
a verging beast of you
placing, displacing
one another
In the ravine the cold thrive
of you a long
close winter
where someone planted you:
needles skyward
sensate iterations of self
open to a too-gray heaven
Or lone
at the edge of the yard
trailing a thousand gestures
toward the ground
You blue
You flag
You crowned
with upright cones
In the ravine
a verging beast of you
placing, displacing
one another
In the ravine the cold thrive
of you a long
close winter
Days of Fog & Sky on a Dimmer Switch
Block-gray ships sight each other through mist.
Sure motion, gentle mass I can only see in you.
I no longer hear the engine in my chest.
We are giant & we float & it’s a miracle.
You, at the counter dry each cup and place
It gently where it goes.
Sure motion, gentle mass I can only see in you.
I no longer hear the engine in my chest.
We are giant & we float & it’s a miracle.
You, at the counter dry each cup and place
It gently where it goes.
Dry Summer, Wet Fall, Long Winter
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- after Tranströmer
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There’s a kind of rain here running through the trees
hurrying down the tight needles.
It has a job. It gathers what didn’t survive
to its rainbreast deep in the ground like I do
in dreams that small creatures in my care have died.
When the sky lets up the rain stops.
See it waiting on the ground in silver discs when we go out.
The water shrinks like we soon will into a darkness
where the dead feed their visions to the living.
hurrying down the tight needles.
It has a job. It gathers what didn’t survive
to its rainbreast deep in the ground like I do
in dreams that small creatures in my care have died.
When the sky lets up the rain stops.
See it waiting on the ground in silver discs when we go out.
The water shrinks like we soon will into a darkness
where the dead feed their visions to the living.
Poetry
The body gathered from long-held volumes
The body bookmarked from feeds
The body feeding on hard detail
The body composing smudged feeling
The body stretching and stretching toward what the students get up to
The body filled in by dm’s
The body the spark that lights my husband’s laughter
The body the smell of a candle blown out
The body an indigo shadow
The body collecting between my eyes
The body slipping away before sleep
The body taking shape there finally
The body an unglazed ceramic forest
The forest thick and vernacular
The thick forest thin enough to break
The inexpert forest giving way to an uneven sea
A light underneath the sea moving
The body bookmarked from feeds
The body feeding on hard detail
The body composing smudged feeling
The body stretching and stretching toward what the students get up to
The body filled in by dm’s
The body the spark that lights my husband’s laughter
The body the smell of a candle blown out
The body an indigo shadow
The body collecting between my eyes
The body slipping away before sleep
The body taking shape there finally
The body an unglazed ceramic forest
The forest thick and vernacular
The thick forest thin enough to break
The inexpert forest giving way to an uneven sea
A light underneath the sea moving
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Jessica E. Johnson writes poetry and nonfiction. She's the author of the book-length poem Metabolics and the chapbook In Absolutes We Seek Each Other, an Oregon Book Award finalist. Her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Paris Review, Tin House, The New Republic, Poetry Northwest, River Teeth, DIAGRAM, Annulet Poetics, The Southeast Review, and Sixth Finch. She lives in Portland, Oregon and co-hosts the Constellation Reading Series at Tin House.
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