First year of marriage
in a one-room cabin on the prairie,
and for weeks on end it blows –
whirring at the windowsills,
rattling the walls, bending the creek willows,
billowing my skirts. Endless
gusts of wind I hear with each whipstitch,
with every broom sweep,
constant as my own
breath, whimpering around
the doors of my dreams until I want
to slam them shut. Only
sometimes, late at night
with him, a blessed hush,
when – wedding quilt slipped to the floor,
head thrown back, hair a silky tangle,
orange sickle of moon curving
through the window –
I’m lost
in love wild
as an autumn field.
— Kathleen Johnson
from Burn, Woodley Press, 2008
Kathleen Johnson is the editor and publisher of New Mexico Poetry Review. She received her BFA in history of art and MFA in creative writing from the University of Kansas. As a freelance book critic specializing in poetry, she published over sixty book reviews in The Kansas City Star and other publications between 2002 and 2009. Her collection of poems Burn, published by Woodley Press in 2008, was selected as a 2009 Kansas Notable Book. A fifth-generation New Mexican, she has divided her time between Kansas and New Mexico for many years. She became a full-time resident of Santa Fe in 2009.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 
Beautifully done…wind as a broom sweep is a great image! Curious, is this Kansas wind or New Mexico wind…I have seen both be gusty! Am heading to Santa Fe in a few days myself…need a fix of NM air.