Malak Mattar, Untitled (detail), 2024, charcoal on paper
Separation
Behind the broom-scrape of fir
Boughs
You’re gone. Just like that.
If I were to close
These scissors
In the empty air
Over my head
Every silkworm in the Orient
Would drop,
Severed from its thread
Onto that
Smouldering pyre
Your anger
Has piled from my bones.
Thomas Johnson has a chapbook, _Footholds _(Ironwood Press), and a full-length book, _Homing Signals _(Stone-Marrow Press). (1975)