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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>There Is a Black Fly in Your Chardonnay<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Rindon Johnson<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Outside, I have never been lonesome,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Always a fence, a plank, an eyebrow in the ocean,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>A baby received in a house, anything tall is a tree.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The sky rearranges itself in the desert;<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The sky rearranges itself in the water;<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The sky rearranges itself while I am in the sky.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>How lucky I thought I was to see the street lights turn on,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Clouds like rows of planting, mistakes we make and agree to continue,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>A view of the river, my rock in the glade,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Bigger, relatively, and still, until,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I pull my lover open like a zipper,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I drag a trowel through them,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I lick the paint off my own stick,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I have a cold back and wet ankles.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Later, a slow moon laboring over the hillside;<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Later, the fog reflects the moon;<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Later, my blood is sucked and I itch.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Will we will we ever find home? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The car calls us in the distance,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>To walk the stairs, to take off my shoes, to stand <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Wringing hands, scratching grass blades on toenails. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>You are starting to see things we could never see before like:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>You have been born,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Or how I waited a whole year for September,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>A piece of fruit,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>A source of fire,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>An edge, an excuse on a small scrap of paper,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The woods in my mouth.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>It is so hot today like yesterday and the day before.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Copyright © 2022 by Rindon Johnson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 10, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Rindon Johnson<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Rindon Johnson is the author of The Law of Large Numbers: Black Sonic Abyss (Chisenhale, Inpatient, SculptureCenter, 2021), among other titles. He was born on the unceded territories of the Ohlone people and currently lives in Berlin.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Ann M. Chiappetta, M.S.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Making Meaningful ConnectionsThrough Media <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>914.393.6605 USA<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="mailto:Anniecms64@gmail.com">Anniecms64@gmail.com</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>All things Annie: <a href="http://www.annchiappetta.com">www.annchiappetta.com</a> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>