All that was left were the boxes of sermons
collected in her study, thirty years
of readings and reflections, prayers ready
to be gathered and stored away.
I could feel the weight of her words
as I carried the stack of boxes, unsorted,
to my car. With her body of work neatly
stored in my mid-sized trunk, I returned
for the size-five boots in the crux
of the doorway, tossing them into the front seat.
The breeze stroked the leaves above me,
their rustling like a flock of small birds
taking flight, perhaps frightened
by the muffled click of the trunk’s latch.
Moving Day
LUKE JOHNSON holds a BA from Elon University and an MFA from Hollins University. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Crab Orchard Review, The Greensboro Review, Sou’wester, Third Coast, and Best New Poets 2008, among others. He has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, The Atlantic Monthly, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He lives and teaches in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.