Joseph Johnson
Back Then
The wall: a flower
popped out
when we pulled it back.
Magpies jumped
to pick bugs
from the bumper.
Despite itself,
a contrail. Red-winged
blackbirds swerved
from the windshield.
We fooled around
back then.
We played in
Livingston
on a dead field, & sun
was underneath our skin.
Joseph Johnson lives and teaches in Missoula, MT. He received his MFA from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and his work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Abstract Magazine TV, Chicago Review, Pleiades, Prelude, Southern Indiana Review, Washington Square Review, and elsewhere.