By Edward Johnson
The girl in the Plaid Pantry
is the only therapy I’ll get tonight.
Can she see that I’m careening?
Past the point of purchase shrines
to batteries, energy drinks, Nicorette,
past the temple of various jerkies.
Can she see I’ve crossed a line?
That I’ve let go of the kite string?
I buy tallboys and Funyuns
with a fistful of sweaty singles.
Her smile-smirk lights a tiny bush fire,
lightning bugs in the graveyard,
maybe some cattails in the marsh,
the river of the body gushes
forward and I stumble toward
the Burnside Bridge hoping
to stay afloat another day
on the log raft of her hazel eyes.
Edward Johnson is a civil rights attorney who has spent the past 30 years representing people living on and over the edge of homelessness. One of his cases involving the fundamental rights of people forced to live outside, Johnson v. Grants Pass went to the Supreme Court of the United States in 2024. He is currently living in a cabin in the North Cascades working on poems, old and new. He has work recently out or forthcoming from Eclectica Magazine, Down in the Dirt, Beatnik Cowboy, Indefinite Space, Main Street Rag, Ginosko Literary Journal, Packingtown Review, cc&d , The Dissident Voice, Evergreen Review, Double Dutch, Whisk(e)y Tit Journal, Winamop, Abraxas Review and Dog Throat Journal.
