Marci's Web Site

Surgery

I sit in front,
my mother's seat,

stare out the window,
watch the plows clear snow
from last night's storm.

In the hospital
I stand in a corner,
press my face against
the white cold wall.

Back home,
some aunt has come to stay.
No one will say why,
but I know

they are cutting her.
They are taking her breast.
Maybe she will die.

There are whispers and phone calls.
I am sent out to play.

My breasts are small.
I press them to the pine tree
and think about the boy at church
with the crooked smile.

What is my mother thinking
in her bed
in the hospital?

At the top of the tree
I am not cold,
though the sky is the color of snow.

I am the blood of the tree.
The sound of the wind.

The bird's cry.
The winter sky.

Copyright (c) 2005 Marci Rae Johnson

• Poem "The Rules" published in Garbanzo
• Poem "Red Shirt" was nominated for a 2004 Rhysling Award and appears in The 2005 Rhysling Anthology (The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Poetry of 2004)
• Poems "How to Live" and "America 2005" to be published in the anthology New Voices and New Visions: Religious Writing from Rising Generations
• Poem "Pillar of Salt" to be published in an upcoming issue of Christianity and Literature

Bio

Marci Rae Johnson holds a MFA in Poetry Writing from Spalding University, and a MA in Theological Studies from Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL). She is Founder and Director of the Poetry Factory reading and workshop series at the Box Factory for the Arts in St. Joseph Michigan, and serves as Poetry Editor for WordFarm, a small Midwestern publisher. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in The 2005 Rhysling Anthology (The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Poetry of 2004), the anthology New Voices and New Visions: Religious Writing from Rising Generations, Garbanzo, Christianity and Literature, Strange Horizons and The Poetry Kit Magazine (UK), among others. Her poem “Red Shirt” was nominated for a 2005 Rhysling Award.