Jill McCabe Johnson

Scientists Confirm the Incredible Existence of Time Reflections

For my father

Of course the light made me think of you, bending
around limbs till the twigs seem to vanish entirely.

The twigs seem to vanish entirely with January
sun slanted lower than grief can bear.

Sunlight slants beneath the empty chair
while you whistle somewhere in a memory long buried.

Somewhere in a memory long buried,
we roast stew in the coals of the fire.

We stoked coals from the strew of the fire
as wind and snow gusted over the sash.

Wind and snow pare away what can’t last—
eyebrows arched in surprise,

flecks of gold in your eyes
—of course the light made me think of you.

Jill McCabe Johnson is the author of two chapbooks and three full-length poetry collections, most recently, Tangled in Vow & Beseech (MoonPath, 2024), finalist for the Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize and Sally Albiso Poetry Award, plus the memoir, Learning to Spar, forthcoming from Unsolicited Press. Honors include Nautilus Awards in Poetry and Nature Writing, Longreads' Best of 2021 Stories, eight Pushcart nominations, and support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Artist Trust, and Hedgebrook. Recent works have been published in One Art, Fourth Genre, Terrain.org, Booth, Sweet, Lunch Ticket, and VerseDaily. Jill is editor-in-chief of Wandering Aengus Press and its imprint, Trail to Table Press.