To Rest Here
in the museum of my children
smooth the comforter
curl up and be the child
adhesive streaks on the ceiling
the last of the glow-in-the-
dark planets
I rest between the old
globe and the stuffed closet
the hoard of their natural history
tiny sweaters with buttons of bone
primitive sculptures
I hold onto these I still hold
their small weight
sweet sticky hands
in my hair
when I circled them and
absorbed their light
when I was their moon
Marilyn A. Johnson’s recent poetry can be read online in UCity Review, Plume, and the Provincetown Journal. Her three non-fiction books include The Dead Beat, about obituary writers; This Books Is Overdue, about librarians and archivists in the digital age; and Lives in Ruins, about contemporary archaeologists. She lives with her family in New York’s Hudson Valley. For more information, visit marilynjohnson.net. (Photo courtesy of Rob Fleder)
