The Signs of Love
- Jun 16, 2023
- 1 min read
by Fred Johnson
The radio comes on at once and you say “What is it darling — ?” My, just all-day game shows — your favourites too, like Where
Are My Fucking Keys? and God, Sandra,
Is That You, Switch Off the Light, Don’t
Look at Me — and you don’t, darling, you never do.
We’ve filled the toaster with bread and forks — real arrogance, and all those pretty faces pressed against the glass. It’s nothing, I say,
nothing I’m not used to. Look here at my pastimes: plastic bags with tinned beans, bottle after bottle of vegetable oil, the dishes we never clean.
And way up high, the windowpane flickers in the rain like an eye. Wow — what a moment. I hope we stretch it out forever.
Your aerial buzzes and I love you and all your signs of love. Just look at those black eyes. Unbelievable.
Fred Johnson is a British writer and photographer currently completing an MFA in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University, where he was a 2021–2022 Pearl Hogrefe Fellow. He’s had poetry published in Tilde, Iota, The Incubator, Zetetic Record, Spark, and others, and photography published by Paddler Press and in Reed Magazine. His cats are named Myshkin and Bean.
