Vanessa Couto Johnson
The freed lunch
Why give you a fake cow
when I don't want to drink milk.
A real animal can arrive
between us. Small
or far away. Near buy,
gladly free. My father at work
has hammered his finger.
Purpled. He heats the tip
of a paperclip and presses
it into the nail. Heal.
Unscrew your bronchitis.
In Ireland, a goat has
met a sheep and they made
a geep. Raise like a lamb.
Braise and bravo. Your fridge
temperamentally keeps.
What we make has a temperature.
Grapevine or bovine,
all becomes a fluid gossiping
about change and exchange.
Why give you a fake cow
when I don't want to drink milk.
A real animal can arrive
between us. Small
or far away. Near buy,
gladly free. My father at work
has hammered his finger.
Purpled. He heats the tip
of a paperclip and presses
it into the nail. Heal.
Unscrew your bronchitis.
In Ireland, a goat has
met a sheep and they made
a geep. Raise like a lamb.
Braise and bravo. Your fridge
temperamentally keeps.
What we make has a temperature.
Grapevine or bovine,
all becomes a fluid gossiping
about change and exchange.
The tabletop game
Where is the hippo
of hunger and infidelity?
I keep opening jars
and eating the stored
nuts inside them.
That is my story
and I am sticking
dried dates into it.
A grandfather lifts
the lid on a crystal
candy dish he has
already emptied.
Teeth do not roll
like marbles
but like something else.
As a child, when
I thought the word
"saliva," I salivated for
hours. A bell in
my head. A dog
in the corner of a yard
waiting for me
to know its trick.
And myself,
my jaws into
a bowl.
Where is the hippo
of hunger and infidelity?
I keep opening jars
and eating the stored
nuts inside them.
That is my story
and I am sticking
dried dates into it.
A grandfather lifts
the lid on a crystal
candy dish he has
already emptied.
Teeth do not roll
like marbles
but like something else.
As a child, when
I thought the word
"saliva," I salivated for
hours. A bell in
my head. A dog
in the corner of a yard
waiting for me
to know its trick.
And myself,
my jaws into
a bowl.
Observe
I put my nose into a glass.
Connoisseurs smell first.
Something brewed in the next
room. The liquid in the dark.
A human shares his birthday
with a dove. Foot of the table
is not a yard. If the handshake
were an exercise. Properly
or property, we possess
food in the mouth.
The young are open
to fed possibility.
I drink after you with
a question called thirst.
I put my nose into a glass.
Connoisseurs smell first.
Something brewed in the next
room. The liquid in the dark.
A human shares his birthday
with a dove. Foot of the table
is not a yard. If the handshake
were an exercise. Properly
or property, we possess
food in the mouth.
The young are open
to fed possibility.
I drink after you with
a question called thirst.
Vanessa Couto Johnson earned her MFA from Texas State University. She is listed as a Highly Commended Poet for the 2014 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Little Patuxent Review, Eratio, Hot Metal Bridge, Word Riot, Gravel, Vector, and elsewhere. She runs treksift.com, blogs at meansofpoetry.com, and has a BA in both English and philosophy from Rice University.
