Luke J. Johnson earned an MFA in poetry from Sierra Nevada College. He lives in San Luis Obispo, California, with his wife and three children.

Finch

by Luke J. Johnson

My son swats a finch with his bat
and begins to laugh

when my daughter swoops
the breathing bird into her arms


and runs toward the river.
There, she stitches


the bird’s torn wing with staples
and hangs it to a tree. All day


she speaks
as if she’s never noticed its shadow


swaying above the chanterelles . . .
the waters whispering over rock.
People on couch
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