There is no slope in the air
no non-slope
only luminosity
lapis hinted
stone of emptiness
all seeing large eye
clear but for
one mote
a vulture flying
across sky
or not
linking empty loops
writing erasing
zeroes halos
a child’s scrawl
loose
wings
over Berryessa
Winters, the valley
flats. A leaf
on a tree swings
heat here
in dry air
Originally from southern California, Allan Johnston earned his M.A. in Creative Writing and his Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Davis. His poems have appeared in over sixty journals, including Poetry, Poetry East, Rattle, and Rhino. He has published two full-length poetry collections (Tasks of Survival, 1996; In a Window, 2018) and three chapbooks (Northport, 2010; Departures, 2013; Contingencies,2015), and received an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, Pushcart Prize nomination (2009 and 2016), and First Prize in Poetry in the Outrider Press Literary Anthology competition (2010). His translations and co-translations of poems from the French and German have appeared in Ezra, Metamorphosis, and Transference. He teaches writing and literature at Columbia College and DePaul University in Chicago. He reads or has read for Word River, r.kv.r.y, and the Illinois Emerging Poets competition, and is co-editor of JPSE: Journal for the Philosophical Study of Education. His scholarly articles have appeared in Twentieth Century Literature, College Literature, and several other journals.