Melody Newey Johnson

Inland

Inland

The ocean came in this morning on
a gust of wind. A thousand miles
inland, it lapped against foothills of
the Rockies. Now, seagulls are crying,
calling for their mother. Now, a memory
of my children tasting salted sand
takes me out with the receding tide.

From An Imperfect Roundness.

Love is a Paper Crane

Love is a Paper Crane

One morning after rain
you lay together listening
as birds chirp and bathe

you realize what began
in two dimensions—
perfect in its simplicity

has folded back on itself
creased by careful words
pressed with passion

into three dimensions—
love has become more
than you envisioned

when you first lifted it
from the shelf and laid it
on the fine wood table.

From An Imperfect Roundness.

God is a Farmer's Wife

God is a Farmer’s Wife

She has been awake since five because it is her nature
and breakfast will be ready when you come.

She knows every recipe by heart.

She knows the sound of your feet moving down the hall
toward the kitchen across those few creaky boards,

knows your sister & brother’s sound too
because every footfall bears witness of its own.

She is warm and round and strong and when she
speaks, the sun begins to rise. She wakes it for you.

Yesterday she plowed fields and fed horses in the
middle of the day while you slept because you were tired.

When the time comes to dream yourself away from this place
she won’t forget the sound of your feet, your quiet breathing.

When you go, she’ll bless your skin to remember the warm,
round sun, your mind to recall the smell of earth; even if

you forget the plow, even if the ground is too hard.
She wants you to go, find your way, to learn the

way horses whinny, each in their own voice; you’ll
breathe their sweet aroma up close: no two alike.

She knows them like she knows you.

And she knows the ground they cover when they run,
every steep, every valley. She hears them when she sleeps.

She hears the grain as it grows to feed them, the music
it makes, brushing the palms of your hands when you

pass through before or after quail who run unseen below.
And your hips— she knows how the grain flicks against them

like a horse's tail. She wants you to listen for her in
whinny and hoof, in tail-swish and quail-scurry;

to taste the song the chick would have sung, if it hadn’t
been made into scrambled eggs for your breakfast.

She wants you to remember her soft apron, how the colors
stay bright even after infinite wearings in the kitchen or at the plow.

She won’t miss you when you’re gone because you are never gone—
the floor still squeaks where your feet found their hold in the morning

your feet, when they were soft and barely awake.

From An Imperfect Roundness.

Map of Good Choices

Map of Good Choices

Cottonwoods as old as great-grandmothers line the lane where I
peddle my bike because the car is broken down and the neighbor is
taking forever to fix it. Kind as he is, it’s been six weeks. Close as it is,
work is still four miles away and my children and I are living on
food stamps and fear. Prayers slip unspoken from knees moving
up and down, up and down, while gears refuse to shift, but at least I
know where I am and where I’m going and at least the kids are safe.

They weren’t always and I’m convinced one day I’ll be punished, even
though it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know their dad was a monster. My knees
go up and down and it’s hard to see through rain, and, honestly, I don’t
know I’m praying until an answer comes and the map unfolds of every
fork in the road, every turn I made toward no, toward yes. And just now
the sun has broken through and I turn to see a trail behind me like
snail-sign, a path between then and now, where nothing was ever wrong
and tears and gears and kids glisten like the perfect and only way home.