Chicago Review 47:3 
(Fall 2001)
 

DEVIN JOHNSTON
 
 
 
 

THINKING OF VELASQUEZ

A change comes and I'm changed:
gone are the chows and billowing cloaks;
I cook an egg, or sleep.

My elbow broke the plane
of darkened wall and paw proffered--
the comfort of what's known.

I inked my image out
of snow, and saw what was reversed
in every dwarf and nun:

the black-and-white of news
I never had the mind to mind--
writ larger than the sun.
 
 
 
 
 
 

DRY STAR

When Mister Glass has set to work,
you'd need a wax pencil
to circle where the cracks had been.

But I could tell of times
the vacuum failed, or bull's-eye
from a home-run hit
survived meticulous repair.

Taipei expo, early June--
eleven years ago:

the fluorescent lamp
which cured our diamond resin
died, and left us in a sweat.

Since sunlight is another 
agent, Araki and I
dragged our demonstration pane
beside the rooftop pool:

buffeting winds from the Pescadores
buckled plexiglass,
and what late light there was
lit up capillaries, chips,
and a cloud of fingerprints.

That's when I switched to Dry Star--
and never once looked back.
 
 
 

CHARACTER

The insistence on order among toys
reflected a larger disorder;

sunlight on the rifle's sight
entailed a world outside

and preceded my character,
which I thought more likely

stalking behind my shoulder--
making a nuisance of itself

out of what I knew;
without my knowledge.

On a slip-up, among strangers,
I took leave of my senses

and called a sudden halt--on the chance
it might lurch past and into view.
 
 
 
 
 

TWO SONGS
 

I. Mars-Lumograph

Pencils
scratch--their shadows
rejoin scuds of day.

Itches
neither prosperous
nor useful hatch
current and star index
on trapper keepers,

sharpen
seedlings planted by
dead men, or tap

graphite 
lead on teeth:
in their midst, what to say?
 
 

II. Ice

Wait and watch
          as ice disobeys 
                      the water

forms evolve
          to violate
                      every essence

changing past
          recall or projection,
                      shedding

calf from berg
          and bringing to heel
                      affection.