Daniel Johnson
Daniel Johnson is a writer from New Jersey living in Burlington, Vermont. He’s a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at University College Cork. His work has appeared in journals such as Southword, Reed Magazine and The Honest Ulsterman. He’s on social media @djohnsonwrites.
Deconstruction
Everything I see this morning
is me and you, me and you. It’s 7:42
above the South Gate Bridge
across from the construction
on the old brewery which means
I will begin the delicate work
of deconstructing every bit of it.
The green god-arm of the crane
swings around to remove the stacks
of timber and the linkages
of scaffolding, hammers
come up, nails rise out of planks,
and swears enter mouths as men
in high-vis walk backwards.
I must undo something if it can’t be
our meeting, if it can’t be your leaving,
if it can’t be the belt around your waist.
Across the river, the finishing touches:
toolboxes are reorganized; safety
vests are folded and stowed.
Something, at least, is made unbegun.
Hideout
The man and the woman hide close
together in the icy garret above
the hostile city, where searchlights
like stars dazzle the winter streets
blind, and boots like pistons
rise and fall. Beneath a blanket,
they breathe into each other’s mouths
to hide the trails of nervous exhalations.
Are they here for us, darling?
They depend on the other as history
happens all around them, molding
them, welding their bodies together,
the cold sweat between their skins
like industrial glue. He nurses her;
she feeds him. Without the other
knowing, when they make love each
imagines they might never come
apart. You’d kill us if you called out!
As the snow piles higher on the eaves
of their safehouse, they hear, suddenly,
the door burst below and a cohort of heavies
on the stairs. As they climb closer
the man and the woman might shut
their eyes and think of another time,
of painful regularities, banal flirtations,
arguments, secret codes in unsecret
times, but know themselves, the tragedy:
It will always be easier this way.