You appear in a class photo of everyone you’ve ever known,
garbled knot of your expression.
Your guide is a chance operation. Your colors, red and gold.
Your parents were pole-sitters, rag-pickers. They found you
in a basket of gestures.
You’ve been keeping a scrapbook of sticks and grubs,
swatches from a sanitary landfill.
Like certain numbers you are irrational, both guest and host,
homesick for the road.
(No, that’s not the sound of your heart.
It’s a misplaced modifier dangling.)
Afflicted by silence in rough concert,
you walk past firefish without comment, poppies
that tell the time of day.
Starbursts and visual snow are your warning signs.
You are this close.
— JOHN JOHNSON
John Johnson is a California native, living in Sonoma County with his wife and daughter and sister-in-law. His poems and translations have appeared in many print and online journals. He is co-translator 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.