Helen, On Childhood by Elaine Johanson

Wild grapes grew in a torrent

above the hill, the vines

billowing over a wall so old

my sisters and I could roll

the stones out with our fingers.

 

Grapes overfilled our skirts,

our hands. We peeled

them with our teeth, held

the naked globes to our eyes

to track the climbing sun.

 

We packed our mouths

to feel their skins pop

in a chorus of honey.

We spit the seeds wet

onto the dark earth.

 

Beyond us, a lagoon spilled

its indigoes into the sea.

Even as we lay in the deep grass,

half our world was so blue

it nearly swallowed us.

 

We were stained with juice,

with grass and ground.

We carried them on

our bodies, we smelled

of rocks and brine.

 

And we ran,

we were full of running,

we died of running

in those wild fields.

 

I haunt myself.

---

Elaine Johanson is a Philadelphia based writer and artist. In 2020, she published “AND AND” (Elm Twig Press), a chapbook of poems and photographs with photographer Jan C. Almquist that explores her family’s history and her own Korean identity. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Southern Review, Nimrod, the Midwest Video Poetry Festival, and Salmagundi, among others. Her work in wheelthrown ceramics explores lightness and balance, and this physical practice has come to inform her writing.