Doppelgänger

My daughter puts
her face against the creek

and says
when I smile, the me

beneath me smiles back
but is empty—

silence dressing the trees.

*

Silence dresses trees
in sequins of ash

and scatters
when implosion

comes from God bombs.
Too easy a name I know,

God bombs.
But when a child watches

buzzards pluck eyes
from infants

and cries,
but cannot

hear herself crying,
what else is there

but silence
and the language of it?

*

LOOK!
my daughter says

and I do:
flames of light

like shrinking doors
turning

and returning.

*

I read a man met fate
while bending

the bow of a cello
and that each

plucked note
echoed the valley

and rose in volume
the further it flew.

That at midnight,
as the enemy slept,

the psalm
of his fingers

foraged a wail
and from them:

frozen children.

*

I want to say
something

of wind or snow
or how

the powdered mist
coats the pond

causing prey
to statue.

How my daughter
traces her face

in a window
and smears

it when her
breath burns.

But I've already
said that before.

So let me
instead say this:

when my daughter
screams

and belly bloats,
she begs

to be carried
to water.

She says she hears
the voice

of a ghost
calling from under

its surface.
That when

she reaches
the girl pulls back

and the two
of them

turn into one.

Luke Johnson is the author of Quiver (Texas Review Press), a finalist for the Jake Adam York Award, The Vassar Miller Prize, and The Levis Award; A Slow Indwelling (Harbor Editions 2024); and Distributary (Texas Review Press 2025). Quiver was recently named one of four finalists for the 2024 California Book Award. Johnson was selected by Patricia Smith as a finalist for the esteemed 2024 Robert Frost Residency through Dartmouth College. You can find more of his work at Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Narrative Magazine, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere.