Jonathan Johnson’s most recent books are the poetry collection May Is an Island (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2018) and the memoir The Desk on the Sea (Wayne State University Press, 2019). “Balsam” is from his collection-in-progress The Little Lights of Town, stories set in his hometown of Marquette, Mich. He is also finishing a novel about John Keats and Fanny Brawne. Johnson’s poems have appeared in Best American Poetry and previous issues of Ploughshares. He teaches in the MFA program at Eastern Washington University.