New Poetry by Brandyn Johnson

DOMINION

“Fill the earth and subdue it,” Genesis 1:28

Grocery bags tumbleweed through a valley, greened

by beer bottle stalagmites among aged paper terraces,

eroded by the grey exhale, whistled from steady traffic.

Styrofoam patches cluster the overpasses, leaving tiny

meltless snows and coffeebreath pebble bits scattered

with tire stitches soldered to pavement cracks as scars.

The sun, ornamented by its metropolitan rind sparkles

mechanically, bronzing a condom – buoying the brook

of ditchwater and oil ribbons – and tarnishing the red

french fry box, folding on itself below the “welcome,”

                                                                 And it is so.


- Brandyn Johnson 2012



MEN BRAGGING ON VACATION, COSTA RICA

“And dude, she was like, 18 and 90 pounds,

felt like I was gonna break her in two,

needed a tub full of ice this morning though,”

he said,

after tossing me a beer by the pool.

His tanned lawyer laughed behind

sunglasses and a bronze gut,

“made her earn that money.”

I have nothing to add

so I nod, and sip my beer and nod,

not thinking about my newlywed upstairs napping,

not thinking about my sisters,

not thinking about someone’s daughter,

offering good times in broken English

to men who travel with their lawyers,

not thinking about the packs of men who

toss jokes like cans of lo-calorie beers

and pay to fuck what is closest to children.

I finish my beer and thank them

on my way to the air-conditioned room,

bumping into a 90-pound housekeeper,

her turquoise shirt shadowed with sweat,

clutching the wrinkled bills she found

on the countertop.

- Brandyn Johnson 2012

Brandyn Johnson, is an American currently living and teaching in China.