Substance
Illness quakes your ravaged body.
I try to scaffold your failing body.
Remember the first time we made love?
Ignoring how age had weathered each other’s body?
Scars, thinning hair, fissured teeth, didn’t matter.
So rapturous to quarry each other’s body.
Rivulets gushed between cracks, quenched our thirst.
An offering to find shelter in the caves of each other’s body.
Soon I’ll receive well-meaning cards. Crystallized
memory will strengthen my heart, my devastated body.
Astronomy
Life withdraws
from his body
despite inherent refusal
A yellow light turns
a slowing down
treatments vetoed
He imagines a different
declination, standing
on the celestial equator
as the universe expands
in all directions. He chooses
a far-flung galaxy,
wills his ashes
to a distant point,
joins a stellar nursery
Time measured
by degrees, minutes,
seconds
Terry S. Johnson recently settled in Alaska after a lifetime in New England and enjoys the Bay Area when visiting her son. She performed as a professional harpsichordist before serving as a public school teacher. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals including Driftwood, Edge, Journal of the American Medical Association, Passager and Theodate. Her first collection, Coalescence, won a 2014 Honorable Mention in the New England Book Festival, and her second book, Plunge, launched in 2019. Her chapbook entitled the stars, your eyes has been accepted by Shanti Arts. www.terrysjohnsonpoet.com
Illness quakes your ravaged body.
I try to scaffold your failing body.
Remember the first time we made love?
Ignoring how age had weathered each other’s body?
Scars, thinning hair, fissured teeth, didn’t matter.
So rapturous to quarry each other’s body.
Rivulets gushed between cracks, quenched our thirst.
An offering to find shelter in the caves of each other’s body.
Soon I’ll receive well-meaning cards. Crystallized
memory will strengthen my heart, my devastated body.
Astronomy
Life withdraws
from his body
despite inherent refusal
A yellow light turns
a slowing down
treatments vetoed
He imagines a different
declination, standing
on the celestial equator
as the universe expands
in all directions. He chooses
a far-flung galaxy,
wills his ashes
to a distant point,
joins a stellar nursery
Time measured
by degrees, minutes,
seconds
Terry S. Johnson recently settled in Alaska after a lifetime in New England and enjoys the Bay Area when visiting her son. She performed as a professional harpsichordist before serving as a public school teacher. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals including Driftwood, Edge, Journal of the American Medical Association, Passager and Theodate. Her first collection, Coalescence, won a 2014 Honorable Mention in the New England Book Festival, and her second book, Plunge, launched in 2019. Her chapbook entitled the stars, your eyes has been accepted by Shanti Arts. www.terrysjohnsonpoet.com
