Tether
For M.
I was 16
when I pressed
the trigger
of an air soft
and felt it
thrust forward.
And felt it
winnow when
the blue jay
plummeted
forty feet
from pine
and started
flipping
like sparks
from a live
M-80. A burst
that blew
the thumb
from the neighbor’s
nephew
and later
left
him unable
to write
or hold his
lover’s
hand.
It’s true before
I wept
I held
the bird
and examined
where
the pellet
entered,
but I refuse
to own the lie
that boys
find pleasure
in breaking things.
Believe me,
for days I
kept the bird
in a sealed
wood box
and before I
could bury it
begged it to wake,
to re-seed song
in its throat.
Thrilled,
my son leads me
through the zoo
and points
to where piranha eat,
the heads
of feeders floating.
Fact: every year
in Argentina
three boys
fall in infested waters,
are stripped
while trying
to swim.
Fact: 90%
of amputees
still feel their
severed limb.
Sometimes we lose
what’s most
important to us
and fill it in
with phantoms.
Scientists call
it muscle memory,
the mind re-mapping
neurons.
But what do we
make of those
we’ve lost
blurring in the rain?
When my father
died I smelled his cigars
could hear him
clear his throat.
If I play his
favorite hit
he speaks in parable,
proposes
hide and seek.
I’m avoiding
where I planted
the bird, M,
I’m too afraid
to tell you.
So instead
let’s watch
the feeders swarm
and awe at how
my son smiles
while pointing to a fin.
Luke Johnson is the author of Quiver (Texas Review Press, 2023) and A Slow Indwelling (Harbor Editions, 2025), a collaborative work with the poet Megan Merchant. Quiver was a finalist for the Levis Prize with Four Way Press, The Vassar Miller Award, the Jake Adam York Prize with Milkweed and the Brittingham/Pollock Prizes through University of Wisconsin. His poems can be found in various publications, including Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Narrative, Florida Review, and Poetry Northwest.
