Clade Song 15

String Theory

Some labyrinths lead us toward insight and healing. Others keep the animal in us in us, which may mean the same. A child falls into the alligator pool at the zoo and walks out at the shallow end, right past the giant creatures sunning themselves like drowsy bathers at the beach.

John Johnson is the authore of Toss Repeat, winner of the 2024 James Tate Prize (Survision Books, 2025), and co-translator of Plagios/Plagiarisms, the poetry of Ulalume Gonzáles de León, winner of the 2021 Northern California Book Award for poetry in translation. His poems and translations have appeared most recently in Hidden Peak Press, Right Hand Pointing, The Prose Poem, and Uut Poetry.