Luke Johnson

BLESS THE MOUTH

                                                                                                                          
Bless the mouth
that saunters, silk of spit.

Bless the hand
that holds the head 
and bobs it back and forth. 

Bless the build the bridge 
the white noise whittled
from the body’s blazed tremolo. 

Bless the gaze
slap of skin, spilled wine. 

Bless the wine the bite
the tang sticky pleather.

Bless the pleather. 
Bless this humid coming and going. 

To contort a tongue
to the rhythm of rapture, a rowboat
swept in a flood––

Luke Johnson lives on the California Coast with his wife and three kids. His poems can be found in Kenyon Review, Narrative Magazine, Florida Review, Thrush, Cortland Review and elsewhere. He was a Finalist for both the Pablo Neruda Prize and Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Award, and his chapbook :boys released with Blue Horse in 2019.