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.