Author Information
Open Mic Readings November 2025
A Good Box It Was
Cardboard remnants
of past lives,
Strewed in hallways
of crowded sentiments.
Reluctant,
yet expectant
of earned places
to be found,
she caresses the cellulose caskets
of long ago purchases,
and emporer thumbs down it all.
Except, maybe one.
Maybe, that one,
Because,
that one,
was, still,
a really good box.
Adirondack Chairs
by Deborah T Johnson
Jigsaw puzzle of greenery, the trees
nestle next to each in the
slicing sideways light of sunset.
The yard in the back is filled with it, filled
with the late, late summer side slant of sun.
The plastic Adirondack chairs shadowed,
left, as we left them, askew,
me, looking at you,
maybe my feet
in your lap...
lWe eft them askew
because...
...the one time we sat there, your discomfort
grated on my tranquil storybook vision, of us
sitting in the sun,
well into night
drinking,
The Wine,
so,
we went inside.
We meant to build a fire that summer,
a fire pit evening of Romance,
but I saw your dis-ease.
Was it the heat?
The drone of the bugs?
The chance of a gnat,
landing
in your drink?
Or was it-
something else,
something not found
in the sideways slant of cooling air.
Something, off in that horizon,
Blocked
by the pale blue, the light blue
house,
Something,
cutting your sight
off
from the road.
It must have been-
because, you said Goodbye,
several times that summer.
A nod, a kiss, and you were off,
in your mind, because you never left,
but sat, in your uncomfortable
sadness
of not belonging here, or where you thought,
you belonged,
wistful plans set ablaze, not by midnight cords of wood
in a pile amongst the rocks, but
set ablaze, by a whimsy, a promise,
not promise.
So,
We sat, that summer, and
watched the flowers in the pots bloom,
and the rains carry one away,
and the gnats gnatting as gnats do,
cannon balling into pinot,
taking up residence,
in that pale blue, light blue house
with plastic mountain chairs
on the lawn.
Those chairs,
those Adirondack chairs,
still sit in the shadow of the slanting sun,
still sit, still sit waiting,
for a time things will be right
with the world.
We just have to get to the other side of That Summer,
find the whimsy,
fulfill the wistful promise,
fly down that open road,
and no longer sit,
in an uncomfortable
sadness,
askew, in plastic
Adirondack
chairs.
Sitting on a Park Bench
With phone on park bench
Meadow fields glowing expanse
He sits not looking.
Neuse River at High Water Release
Fast flow, field surrounds
Tumbling plastic discard
Swirling to the sea.
Roots that Spy
Evil eye root ball
Guarding the garden path
Old oak sees you now.
