Heather Taylor Johnson
Heather Taylor Johnson, I am a poetry editor for Wet Ink magazine and the author of the poetry collection Exit Wounds.
Heather Taylor Johnson
Artist Summary: I am an American ex-pat usually residing in Adelaide, South Australia but living in Salida for all of 2010 on an international teachers’ exchange through my husband’s job. I hold a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide, am a poetry editor for Wet Ink magazine and the author of the poetry collection Exit Wounds. My work reflects place and identity, and the role of memory. It is very female oriented, often dissecting the dichotomies of motherhood.
Category: writing
Discipline: poetry, fiction
Subject: place, identity, memory, feminine
Website Address: www.heathertaylorjohnson.com
Mailing Address:
420 Creston Ave,
Salida, CO 81201
Phone: 719 539-7887
Email: kingstreet1
ozemail
comau
Amongst It
Our nine year itch moved us to the mountains.
Small town, big earth
we breathed it every day:
snow
snow falling
snow sifting, resting, misting upwards
from a sexy wind.
Our waterless lips
were constantly parted
constantly wanting to lap it up.
We became so spontaneous the frozen waterfall
we walked upon, ad-libbed and perfect.
And the night in the lounge after Sunny’s party,
the mess, wood stove, us.
Riotous snowballs melted down
the backs of our knitted necks
and the jolt, the stagger, the interchangeable
skin and liquid ice (liquid ice
and incredible skin).
Something fleeting about it all.
And those mountains –
their permanence.
When we finally looked away we breathed;
it was evergreen, deer dung and snow.
In the end we became asthmatic
because after the mountains
my eyes found yours
and then we gasped
forgetting to breath
forgetting the snow
forgetting even
the mountains.
