Poetry by Julie Allyn Johnson

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The Wailing Side of Town

My uncle pulls a Camel Filter
from a crushed pack, 
cellophane crinkles and crunches,
the heft of his wiry frame 
a mere suggestion atop 
a saggy Sealy Posturepedic.

Milton thinks we don’t notice 
but I see his furtive gaze 
out the 3rd-floor walk-up window
watching for the amber neon light 
to flicker on at Virginia’s 
across the deserted 
late-Saturday morning street.

His raspy cough echoes harshly,
bounces off the spartan walls,
its sound muffled by a faded 
rose-chenille spread
pockmarked by the smolder 
of countless cigarettes.
Phlegm-stains polka-dot the pillows.

A twenty should do me
he splutters between hacks, 
stomps both feet
in an effort to clear 
his tracheal passages.
Fifty sure would be nice 
if you could see your way to it.

Sister and I share confused looks.

Daddy’s stern face remains passive.
He blinks in the weak autumn sunlight.

Richard, I swear. I’ve drunk my last.
I’m a changed man, 
seen the errors of my ways.

My father shushes him, 
hands us girls the keys to the Buick.
Tells Kelly and me to wait in the car.

He’s quiet on the ride home,
the silence an ominous layering
grim as the dirty-gray November sky.

Mother pours highballs 
in the sunroom. She murmurs
what sounds like agreement.
My sister and I cower, 
watching them
down a second, 
and another
and then one or three more.


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Julie Allyn Johnson, a sawyer's daughter from north central Iowa, began writing poetry after her retirement from IT work in 2017. She loves hiking, gravel-travel photography, riding bikes, altered books and collage, reading and writing poetry and exploring trails in the Rocky Mountains. Her work has been (or soon will be) published in Lyrical Iowa, Persephone's Daughters, Typishly, The Esthetic Apostle, Chestnut Review, SPLASH!, The Loch Raven Review, Better Than Starbucks, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Into the Void, Poetry and Covid, Phantom Kangaroo, Coffin Bell and The Briar Cliff Review.

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