Restlessness

 

 
 
 
Since some will ask about this

place called us, it looked out

 

on a field of sunflowers beneath green

mountains that vanished in mist.

 

We were convinced happiness lived

there, or somewhere like it. And weren’t we

 

happy there? In the gleaming kitchen

that final morning, two flawless sunflowers,

 

a postcard propped against the vase.

No message, or hint, just a P.S:

 

Retrieve. And don’t forget Love,

What saved us still saves us.

 

Now I know that too should

have ended with a question.
 
 
 

Wayne Johns received the Rane Arroyo prize for his chapbook, The Exclusion Zone, forthcoming from Seven Kitchens Press in Winter 2018. His first collection, Antipsalms, received the Editor's Choice prize from Unicorn Press and is forthcoming in Fall 2018. His poems have appeared in New England Review, Ploughshares, Image, Prairie Schooner, and Best New Poets, among others.