Chimera

Tonight, rain drapes
the blue acacia 

& the streetlights   
shimmer, shroud

the cars in shadows. 
My sick, who calls 

herself daughter, points 
at how the blossoms 

curl to cocoons
then commit themselves 

to air. She wants
to know where

the scavengers take them,
& why at night

when her name emerges, 
they come so close

she could reach a hand, stroke 
their knotted pelt.

Pretend she says, 
this is all a dream,

& when we wake 
we are bodiless voices, vapors 

framed in mist.
We watch I Love Lucy.  

Take turns singing
Frank Sinatra, then sit 

by the window
waiting for fawns, 

the little ones lost 
from their mothers.

*

As a boy, my father 
wiped dust from a rifle 

then slowly 
framed a five point 

& blew until the birds burst 
& the beast lay 

still in the reeds. In the reeds, 
a womb revealed 

a doe unborn, 
& my father, lost, 

spared me the sight, 
before slipping

it into the stream. I confess, 
when the beast fell

& baby sank, 
I could hear a hum 

erupt from water
then sweep 

across the fields. 
It fell like snow

over flowerless trees
& loomed, large, 

like an angelic chill, stalking
the news of the living. 

*

Long before this, 
when my mom was small

& her father
had not died from cancer, 

she was wrestled 
from dream 

by invisible force
& found, when waking, 

a wounded robin,
flapping against her floor. 

She bathed the bird
& fed it. 

Gave it drops 
of water, a bed, & set 

it near a lamp
to warm its wing. 

In the morning, yes, 
the bird was gone, 

but for a single feather, 
& my mom 

began to weep for hours, 
afraid 

of what she’d done. 
That Fall 

her father died
& the birds no longer

shared the news
nor squabbled 

the streets for seed. 
It was as if everything stopped, 

she tells me, 
No more music son, 

no mystery. 

*

Tonight, rain drapes
the blue acacia 

& sores summon
my daughter’s fear, radiate 

into her stomach. 
I sprinkle lavender, water, 

stutter over a prayer. 
Place my palm

upon her body
& beg

the beast to transfer
her pain

& seed its gales
inside me. 

---

Luke Johnson is the author of Quiver (Texas Review Press 2023), A Slow Indwelling (Harbor Editions 2024) and Distributary (Texas Review Press 2025). Quiver was long listed for the 2025 Kate Tufts Award and a finalist for the 2024 California Book Award. Johnson was recently awarded runner up for the Robert Frost Residency through Dartmouth College. You can find more of his work at Poetry Daily, Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere.