What Spells Trouble
- What Spells Trouble
you have since swallowedso much blood, the sailboatsrap violently about the docks,and how heavy the gulls' wingshave grown, how sour, sourlybeloved, and what shall we thencall it, this consternation, a bluefunk, some pestilence, which hangsor blooms or paints itself silentlywithin the many courtyardsof the body, or across that highcourt of the skull, what loomslike another steamrolled peony,or some pink paper moon. [End Page 92]
Amaud Jamaul Johnson is the author of Darktown Follies (Tupelo, 2013) and Red Summer (2006). A former Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford and Cave Canem Fellow, his honors include a Pushcart Prize, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, and the Dorset Prize. He directs the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
