When we kissed it didn’t mean forever

A contemporary poem from E.B. Johnson.

Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash

rough-gilled and flat-tongued; pressed to the earth
like cannibals. it didn’t fester when the wound was

expunged — but it did expatriate. pressing the flesh
from her hollows like bones ground into lilied glass.

he paddled her out to the shallows; a little less grac-
ious than he was the last time he bent her over the

e…