| The 2River View | 29.4 (Summer 2025) |
No polka dots in Golgotha. No bowls of fruit. No ceremony to attend. No better moods in the place of a skull. No mild winds moving your neck hair, moving someone else's hemline. Not a single desired effect. No merciful pauses and no lovely ones to savor afterwards. No travels in Golgotha, no meet-ups with strangers, old friends. No fulfillment of wishes that gestated for years and were meant for this place. No thought of a picnic, no dreams for the afternoon. No idea what to do, no exchange of a few words, no conversation. No cause that you can pinpoint, no spiritual vocation. No mention of a backdrop, no dimensions to find. No theater of operations you can draw up. Not a chance that you can be at peace, that you can come to terms, you can know prosperity. No expanses you can walk, no trees, no smells of the past, no grasses, no well. Nothing lying in wait. No elsewhere.
Nudes For most of the afternoon, they were nudes with sweating wine glasses. All summer long, they were oily nudes at the poolside and aging nudes in the sunroom. He would sometimes fetch her a novel left on the sofa, the strap chaise, her bedside table—and she went on reading, a few pages at a time. They would eat crusty bread and soft cheese if they felt hungry. It was pleasantly hot. They got sleepy, they went for a little swim or climbed into bed. Hours passed with no word between them. Still as a painting, Herb and Ellen, in a nice frame, blessèd. | |||
Brian Johnson is the author of Torch Lake and Other Poems, a finalist for the Norma Farber First Book Award; and Site Visits, a collaborative work with a German painter. His work has appeared in journals such as American Letters and Commentary, Massachusetts Review, and North American Review. website |
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