McKinley Johnson

stoop

the sour, dank
tobacco

the piss thin
stream of smoke

against streetlights
the fuller

cloud of smoke
from your lips

you
on the bottom step

me
pacing

the sidewalk
the crick-crick-

crick of the bugs
in the lone

oldgrowth
stark against

the development
the neighbors

dark thresholds
the dotted

yellow squares
of bedroom windows

and still
you

starker still
against

the suburb
of it all

the headlights
the distant siren

the dank
sour tobacco

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McKinley Johnson (he/him) is a poet from the foothills of Appalachia. He is an MFA student in Poetry at George Mason University, the Assistant Poetry Editor of phoebe, a Teaching Fellow for Poetry Alive! and an editorial reader for Poetry Daily. His work is published or forthcoming in West Trade Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Pinesong and elsewhere.