The Soldier's Mother, and: For Loud Women Like Me, and: Grace & Kindness, and: To Keep From Crying

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• The Soldier's Mother, and: For Loud Women Like Me, and: Grace & Kindness, and: To Keep From Crying
• Amanda Johnston (bio)

THE SOLDIER'S MOTHER

Fort Knox, 2001

In the PX, she tells me her son is joining the Army, and we share the face of birthing loss, the knowing that our children are not meant to live forever but not meant to die like this. A television flickers in the background with the sound off to not disturb the passing customers. Five dead, more injured. Overthere came home with him, another mother's son flailing against the ghosts of his demons. The voices, he said, the departments, he said, kill, they said, and released him to his mother when every face he saw blurred into a target. A mother somewhere collapses and thanks God. A mother somewhere collapses in search of God. Another mother in a hospital, at the morgue, in a church, prays to a silence in the shape of god. [End Page 74]

FOR LOUD WOMEN LIKE ME

when it's a good hollaand you can see my teethin the back of my mouthyou'll know you've foundthe best of me, rich with spiritsfull on good folkgoing on about somethingno one will remember butsomebody told the truthsomebody's testifyingsomebody's laughingthe salt to sweetsomebody found honeyin the marrow of the nightand passed the cup around [End Page 75]

GRACE & KINDNESS

for the congregation of Mother Emanuel AME Church

Because god don't like uglyBecause make a bigger tableBecause build a bigger boatBecause all god's childrenBecause come as you areBecause mind your businessBecause do unto othersBecause they not all badBecause kill 'em with kindnessBecause laugh to keep from cryingBecause open-door policyBecause open-armsBecause what would jesus doBecause the more the merrierBecause the devil in the detailsBecause no questions askedBecause the devil stays busyBecause the devil you knowBecause we knew better

the hell we did [End Page 76]

TO KEEP FROM CRYING

we know the many wayswe risk our lives

breathing, sleeping, walkingunder an open sky

how brazen our persistent existencehow bold the base in our hearts

danger blooms big as our joywide as our smiles

and we keep on keepin' onlaughing all the way [End Page 77]

Amanda Johnston

AMANDA JOHNSTON is a writer, visual artist, and the 2024 Texas Poet Laureate. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. She is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key, and the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter. Her work has appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them, Poetry Magazine, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, The Moth Radio Hour, and the anthologies, Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry and Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. She has received fellowships, grants, and awards from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, Tasajillo, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Watermill Center, American Short Fiction, and the Austin International Poetry Festival. She is a former board president of Cave Canem Foundation, a member of the Affrilachian Poets, and founder/executive director of Torch Literary Arts.

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