a failed record of a roadtrip in haibun
Chris Johnson
$5
I’m the youngest son of the youngest son of a youngest son. If I unwind the string for long enough, surely it will end at an explanation of why my family has unknotted from my mother’s outgoing, close-knit relations. My dad’s mother knit for me rarely. I never pulled those threads. She baked, kept mints in crystal jars, chuckled ignorantly at my adolescent selection of movies rented from the local video store on the weekends we’d stay in Gravenhurst. My mom’s father is alive for country road driving. On taking blind turns around corners on winding roads, he’d say that you should always prepare to meet someone coming the other way. Now I’m turning onto Essonville Line. The grandparent’s grave I’m approaching and the grandparent’s advice on my mind are incongruous. Out of nowhere, I’m a sum of less than two parts; a motto with odd genesis.
June 2019
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cover image: dalton derkson
Chris Johnson is the Managing Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine. His chapbook, Listen, Partisan!, is from Frog Hollow Press. @ceeeejohnson
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