Aspens
These trees
shimmer in no breeze—
the moon’s
a wild rabbit
above us—
no breeze
or one so slight
we don’t feel it—
mad ghost breathing—
bark curled
scrolling tops
of columns,
pedestals:
these are the reasons
nights are in love
and we are in love
with night
and each other—
each way the skin lies:
what is a grove
but ghosts of stones?
Allan Johnston is the author of one full-length poetry collection (Tasks of Survival, Mellen, 1996) and two chapbooks from Finishing Line Press (Northport, 2010; Departures, 2013), and has received an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize nomination (2009), and First Prize in Poetry in the Outrider Press Literary Anthology competition (2010). He teaches writing and literature at Columbia College and DePaul University in Chicago. He serves as a reader for Word River and for the Illinois Emerging Poets competition, and is an editor for the Journal for the Philosophical Study of Education. His academic articles have appeared in Twentieth Century Literature, College Literature, and several other journals.