Category: Taylor Johnson

by Taylor Johnson

Bless the boys riding their bikes straight up, at midnight, touching,

if only briefly, holding, hands as they cross the light to Independence.

Bless them for from the side the one on the red bike looks like me,

his redbrown hair loose against the late summer static heat.

The boy who is not me (see how I did that) fixes his mouth to say

something I will never hear I love you or I’m so sad though

more than likely Catch up. Bless the boy who is me on his bike

because he was a witness to my witnessing and did not turn away,

did not make of me a disappeared, burned thing— instead nodded as boys do.

Bless the distance and the knowing there. What my mind makes of these boys,

bless that long hallway I’m always going through.

Bless what could be mine or me.

Bless the boys I wanted to be or wanted.

from InheritanceFind more by Taylor Johnson at the library

Copyright © 2020 Taylor Johnson
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.

by Taylor Johnson

It’s raining. Has to be raining. Someone in the corner room is in love with you. Loves you

enough to touch her body, wants you to watch; pull up a chair. The horn asks: How long has it

been since? There are a number of feelings you are in need of. You are not sadness, but near.

Down one road in your mind you are walking alone; down another everyone is your wife. The

horn asks: temperance, obedience. In the corner room, the daybed pressed to spark against the

wall, she came. When you leaned in to know about it, you wished she would’ve slapped your

hand away; wished to unhear your name falling out of her.

from InheritanceFind more by Taylor Johnson at the library

Copyright © 2020 Taylor Johnson
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.

by Taylor Johnson

I forget about money watching the clouds over 8th & Ingraham. The clouds a rhubarb-colored

ship in the sky. To my right it all grays out, the bats emerging now from the chimneys. The bats

listening for the cicadas’ echo. Echo is a way to create space, is a metaphor for time. Time for

the cop to move along I think watching the cop watch me from my porch. Fuck 12. The robin on

the wirevine the wireeye competing with the bats for cicadas. The robin competing reds with

the sky. The sky a money for the cicadas: a way to make space, time. The cicadas sounding out

the future through repetition. A friend says to spend nothing is to keep flexibility in your hands,

to keep your youth. Money the sound of decay. Money the repetition of waste.

from InheritanceFind more by Taylor Johnson at the library

Copyright © 2020 Taylor Johnson
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.

by Taylor Johnson

O, Death. Your singular eye. My mother speaks the King’s English. Makes quiche. Makes clove

pomanders in winter. Pawned her flute. Cleaned my elementary school classroom. What is

hers? Brillant song, my mother, sotto voce, in her chair asking for touch. It is drowning she

means, not freedom. I swam fine. Don’t you get it, O Death, my mother is elegant alive, entering

the blue hole of evening, alone. You could reach into the frame, pull her out. O Death, I’ve been

crueler— I’ve watched.

from InheritanceFind more by Taylor Johnson at the library

Copyright © 2020 Taylor Johnson
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.

by Taylor Johnson

Every day I build the little boat,

my body boat, hold for the unique one,

the formless soul, the blue fire

that coaxes my being into being.

Yes, there was music in the woods, and

I was in love with the trees, and a beautiful man

grew my heartbeat in his hands, and there

was my mother’s regret that I slept with.

To live there is pointless. I’m building the boat,

the same way I’d build a new love—

looking ahead at the terrain. And the water

is rising, and the generous ones are moving on.

O New Day, I get to build the boat!

I tell myself to live again.

Somehow I made it out of being 15

and wanting to jump off the roof

of my attic room. Somehow I survived

my loneliness and throwing up in a jail cell.

O New Day, I’ve broken my own heart. The boat

is still here, is fortified in my brokeness.

I’ve picked up the hammer every day

and forgiven myself. There is a new

language I’m learning by speaking it.

I’m a blind cartographer, I know the way

fearing the distance. O New Day,

there isn’t a part of you I don’t love

to fear. I’m holding hands with

the poet speaking of light, saying I made it up

I made it up.

from InheritanceFind more by Taylor Johnson at the library

Copyright © 2020 Taylor Johnson
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.