Fall 2014, Volume 17

Poetry by Kasey Johnson

My Caesura

Probably I always needed you
even out there among the frigatas
black and soundless, hovering
in the sky or folding themselves
close to the fishermen’s boats.

Sure, I thought I knew what
I was doing, cuddling the blue
Pacific, nursing myself on sodas
and patacones, but who doesn’t
try it out—confidence, bravado

autochthonous crabs surface
on the sand at low tide and dance
sideways, pinchers raised
in salutation or warning.
Let go, they seem to say

or you will be pierced,
and maybe it’s not so bad
at first, the continuous epidermis
breached quickly, a red line
forms, and you step over it.

 

 

 

BIO: Kasey Johnson received a BA in English from Reed College and an MA in English Literature from the University of New Mexico. She is an editorial assistant and book review editor for CALYX, A Journal of Art and Literature by Women. Her work has been published by Silver Birch Press and is forthcoming in Corium Magazine and Prick of the Spindle.