DOMESTIC SCENES

5 5 R D O M E S T I C S C E N E S D E V I N J O H N S T O N A spray of toothbrushes, stems in a mug: a family portrait. * In dirty light, disordered pairs of snow boots and galoshes line the welcome mat: the stragglers have come home and passed inward on stocking feet to the apartment’s hidden core. * With eyes shut, the child twirls on the kitchen tile, a whirling dervish turning continually toward herself like the spindle on a phonograph until she wobbles, drunk with vertigo; another song about a baby and a bottle ends with a crash. * Alone in his room the youngest one 5 6 Y dreams of whatever takes place while he sleeps – the flutter of a distant storm, the clink of cups, a midnight visitor – and wakes to tell what we already know. * Nothing that we plant thrives here. Dead wood advances down our rose stems year by year. And yet the honeyvine, a weed, curls around the base and climbs with mindless mastery to reach a waving height free of thorns and shade. There, it hangs an anglepod to feed on the morning light. ...