Enumeration / poem by Julie Allyn Johnson

 enumeration

one way of looking at things is to imagine

two separate entities glossing over the mouldering

three-way mystery of father, son & holy ghost,

forever tarnished catholic traditions displaced by more than

500 years of incense & muttered prayers, the buried bodies

six feet under, fistfuls of dirt tossed atop shiny new caskets by widows & tiny children

seven x seven x seventy-seven distasteful repetitions, and you wonder what it was you

ate to cause your belly to swell like a failed fastball sailing over the bleachers in the

ninth inning and history’s been evil and rotten and cruelly unkind to

ten times ten (million) little Indians—by one account—

and, perhaps, a whole lot more than just that

Julie Allyn Johnson is a sawyer's daughter from the American Midwest whose current obsession is tackling the rough and tumble sport of quilting and the accumulation of fabric. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her poetry can be found in Star*Line, The Briar Cliff Review, Phantom Kangaroo, Lyrical Iowa, Moss Piglet, Cream Scene Carnival, Coffin Bell, The Lake, Haikuniverse, Chestnut Review and other journals. Julie enjoys photography and writing the occasional haiku, some of which can be found on her blog, A Sawyer’s Daughter.