Leah Browning
Poetry
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DAMAGE
by Leah Browning
One has to question the logic of a swing set
embedded in a slab of asphalt
on the playground of an elementary school.
Those coltish legs slanted at an angle,
the dark smile of each seat hanging from chains,
but it was the 1970s all plaid slacks
and big collars and we didn’t think about safety
then, in those years before AIDS and baby
car seats. It was still cool to smoke and sunbathe,
and I never had to wear a bike helmet
or travel en masse because the weirdo
in the white van who stopped me
on my way to school and asked if I’d seen his dog
and would I get in and help him look for it
was an anomaly, and we didn’t lock
our front door or worry about picking up
a woman stranded by the side of the road
with her car because nobody had a cell phone
and looking back my god it’s a wonder we
didn’t all die; it’s a wonder anyone survived
with all the lead paint and raw cookie dough.
So I never thought twice about the bed of asphalt
waiting for Jason Jackson’s warm head
as he stood on the swing and pushed as hard
as he could with his legs. That swing set
is gone now, and the spinning death trap
we used to fall off of and even the teeter-totters,
with their pale splintered wood, but they were still
there then. And Jason didn’t die, just cracked
his head open on the asphalt and had to go
to the hospital in an ambulance and get stitches.
Every day from then on his father went to work
a little later because he walked him to school
carrying Jason’s little sister on his shoulders
in a fog of cigarette smoke, and all three of them smiling
as if it were the victory march.
"Damage"
Copyright © 2007 by Leah Browning
First published in Queen's Quarterly, Vol. 114, No. 3 (Fall 2007), pp. 472-473.
PICKING CHERRIES IN THE ESPAÑOLA VALLEY
by Leah Browning
Our mother’s friend invites us out to her house for the day.
Her orchards are bursting with ripe fruit, apples and cherries,
and she sends my sister and me outside with baskets
on our arms. We wander up and down the rows of trees
picking fruit from low branches, and my sister’s basket
grows heavy while mine swings loose and empty from my arm.
I prefer eating cherry after cherry, twisting the stems
around my fingers like rings, and daydreaming.
In the afternoon I retreat to the house and sit near
my mother’s friend on the cool stone of the fireplace.
I drink a glass of water and tell her my favorite fantasy:
a pet monkey I imagine loving like my own child.
To my surprise, she tells me that once, briefly,
as a girl about my age, she had a pet monkey of her own.
But her version is far less romantic than the one I have
invented. There is no white lace dress, no black leather boots,
no (don’t laugh) no talking. Her monkey speaks little English
and, apparently, eschews all clothing, even lace and leather.
In her story, the monkey chases the little girl, pelting her
with oranges. There is no hard-won connection, no happy ending.
And I can’t help feeling disappointed: betrayed by real life
with its plainness and rough edges, and by this beloved animal,
so free of frills and unsuited for domestic life.
The woman returns to her canning, and I run back out
to the orchard, unable to escape this fierce new monkey,
who chases me down toward the apple trees
on her rough, scabbed legs, both of us already hearing the knock
of fruit against flesh.
"Picking Cherries in the Española Valley"
Copyright © 2004-2006 by Leah Browning
First published in Salome Magazine (January 22, 2007), www.salomemagazine.com.
APRIL IN MINNESOTA
by Leah Browning
The edges of my anger
have been sanded down;
we no longer bump against them
each time we turn
in these crowded rooms.
It’s been months since I woke
to thoughts of suicide
(however distant and ill-formed)
and I have stopped blaming you
if the sky is too blue
or not blue enough.
We are hopeful, yet tentative
with each other after these long
winter months, wary of unfinished
corners that might still threaten
to rage forward and split us
when we are already bloodied and raw.
Our neighbor spends each weekend
outdoors now, pushing a mower
past one wall of our house. Inside
his garage, the tools are neatly ordered
on the shelves, every rake and shovel
hanging on its own hook.
Monday comes again.
I wake fearful, not remembering
that the sharp edges of my shoulders
have been rounded,
the clumps of my fists
smoothed into fingers.
Outside our kitchen window,
the sun’s anemic early light
falls on grass so green and perfect
that it looks like the set of a play.
All the house is silent,
waiting for my entrance.
"April in Minnesota"
Copyright © 2003 by Leah Browning
First published in Lily: A Monthly Online Literary Review, Vol. 4, Issue 2
(January 2007), www.lilylitreview.com.
VALENTINE’S DAY, AND WE ARE STILL SEPARATED
by Leah Browning
After work, I follow as she does
the shopping. I see that you still love
shrimp, and a plain green salad.
At the dry cleaner’s, her silky blue
dress has been inserted between
the black and navy shoulders of your suits.
She has a red Honda Civic, and I see myself
throwing rocks through the windshield,
or using her own car to run her down
as she emerges from the bakery with a heart-
shaped cake sculpted out of chocolate,
your favorite.
Instead, I go back to my new apartment on the lake
and watch two birds steady each other on the ice,
looking for grasses, while you drink red wine
and carry her to bed.
"Valentine's Day, and We Are Still Separated"
Copyright © 2001 by Leah Browning
First published in St. Cloud Unabridged, Vol. 7, No. 10 (June 2003), p. 9.
LEARNING TO PLAY PIANO AT THIRTY
by Leah Browning
Everywhere I lay my hands
I hear music. Each touch
on the computer keyboard,
my fingers drumming
scales on the bedside table
as I’m falling asleep.
I feel my brain unfolding,
gently, like a silk scarf.
I learn to play with two
hands, in minor keys, with feeling.
Alone in my room, I write
a sonata, then an opera.
The house begins to flood,
seams bursting, notes
trickling down the walls.
You still haven’t come back,
so I have to do the rescuing myself,
using the piano bench as a raft.
"Learning to Play Piano at Thirty"
Copyright © 2007 by Leah Browning
First published on postcards from the program Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf, 2007/2008.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
by Leah Browning
On the way back from Alamosa I tell you
that I want four children. The radio is playing,
and our hands touch in the dark.
Already this feels like a memory,
too weighted for a simple Sunday night.
Snow falls onto the beams
of the headlights, but inside the car
the air even smells warm, and I have to
unbutton my coat. “Remember the time
I lent you my sweater?” you say,
making our history up to this point
sound rich and expansive
though there is little more than
the sweater and a plastic bowl
melted on the front burner of your stove
while I stirred brownie batter. “I remember,”
I say. The ground under our feet is untested,
but still we feel the desire to build.
"Under Construction"
Copyright © 2005 by Leah Browning
First published in Blood Orange Review, Vol. 1, No. 4 (October 2006),
www.bloodorangereview.com.
THE RELIGION OF EVERYDAY THINGS
by Leah Browning
We return at nightfall, shoulders bowed, weighed down
by slights and insults. They fall from us at the door,
as everything beyond these walls recedes. The horns
and sirens, the pain and desperation that invade our outside
life: all are silenced. We join each other and sit,
and rise and sit, in unison. Then, cleansed, we bow our heads,
letting love seep over the table until even the most humble
foods—the potatoes, the salt—feel shy and deeply cherished.
When the meal ends, we find that we are pulled apart
strand by strand, that the walls and floor are as deeply connected
as our arms and legs. The elements have to weave
and reweave as we move from room to room, sitting down in one
or walking out of another. We connect almost as fluidly, bashful
as strangers. Courteous, we pass in the hallways without touching;
we close each door with the faintest sound; we say please
and thank you and God bless you, again and again, as though the act
of sneezing were a form of prayer, and we were only answering
in kind. In silence, we perform the ritual ablutions, as we always
have: bathing in the dim sunlight of the morning, washing our faces
as we undress for bed. And in the end we lift the quilts and find
each other there, waiting, every breath reverent,
every touch of skin a testament.
"The Religion of Everyday Things"
Copyright © 2002 by Leah Browning
First published in To Have and to Hold: Poems, Blessings, and Wishes for Newlyweds, ed.
by June Cotner (New York: Center Street/Hachette Book Group USA, 2007), pp. 75-76.
NOURISHMENT
by Leah Browning
I wake in the night to find you
nestled close to me under the quilt,
your tiny hands stroking my breast.
You nurse and nurse, not even opening
your beautiful sleepy eyes, the lids threaded
with delicate blue veins. This, our
dim sanctuary. It's raining outside, holy
water falling from the eaves, my
breast deflating softly like a jellyfish.
You turn, sighing, perfectly content,
your warm milky breaths slow and even.
Those tiny fingers knead my skin
even in sleep. A smile darts across your face,
a dreamy version of your dimpled grin. You're full
of secrets not yet spoken. My fingers are laced
through your hair, stroking your fluid skin,
searching out the answers with my fingertips.
Why fine bones broaden in your presence, my son,
and why I find, each time I embrace you,
that I am this porous earth.
"Nourishment"
Copyright © 1997 by Leah Marcy Browning
First published in Mothering Magazine, No. 90 (September/October 1998), p. 68.
A slightly different version was reprinted in Miracles of Motherhood: Prayers and Poems
for a New Mother, ed. by June Cotner (New York: Center Street/Hachette Book Group
USA, 2007), p. 83.
THE PATCHWORK POEM
by Leah Browning
Skin scrubbed clean and glowing
after a shower, the scent of shampoo.
Lying in bed on a winter morning
with the baby asleep between us.
Our fingers pressed together
in the dark of a movie theater.
The sound of laughter. Always,
the sound of laughter.
Walking downtown
and back home again.
Night by the river.
What you said, what I said.
I’ll bind these things together,
trim the loose threads, work until
the separate pieces
form one piece—skin-soft,
yet durable, too, because
I mean it to last you forever.
"The Patchwork Poem"
Copyright © 2004 by Leah Browning
First published in Poetry & Company: A Kingston Community Anthology, edited by Diane
Dawber (Ontario: Hidden Brook Press, 2007), p. 3.
by Leah Browning
One has to question the logic of a swing set
embedded in a slab of asphalt
on the playground of an elementary school.
Those coltish legs slanted at an angle,
the dark smile of each seat hanging from chains,
but it was the 1970s all plaid slacks
and big collars and we didn’t think about safety
then, in those years before AIDS and baby
car seats. It was still cool to smoke and sunbathe,
and I never had to wear a bike helmet
or travel en masse because the weirdo
in the white van who stopped me
on my way to school and asked if I’d seen his dog
and would I get in and help him look for it
was an anomaly, and we didn’t lock
our front door or worry about picking up
a woman stranded by the side of the road
with her car because nobody had a cell phone
and looking back my god it’s a wonder we
didn’t all die; it’s a wonder anyone survived
with all the lead paint and raw cookie dough.
So I never thought twice about the bed of asphalt
waiting for Jason Jackson’s warm head
as he stood on the swing and pushed as hard
as he could with his legs. That swing set
is gone now, and the spinning death trap
we used to fall off of and even the teeter-totters,
with their pale splintered wood, but they were still
there then. And Jason didn’t die, just cracked
his head open on the asphalt and had to go
to the hospital in an ambulance and get stitches.
Every day from then on his father went to work
a little later because he walked him to school
carrying Jason’s little sister on his shoulders
in a fog of cigarette smoke, and all three of them smiling
as if it were the victory march.
"Damage"
Copyright © 2007 by Leah Browning
First published in Queen's Quarterly, Vol. 114, No. 3 (Fall 2007), pp. 472-473.
PICKING CHERRIES IN THE ESPAÑOLA VALLEY
by Leah Browning
Our mother’s friend invites us out to her house for the day.
Her orchards are bursting with ripe fruit, apples and cherries,
and she sends my sister and me outside with baskets
on our arms. We wander up and down the rows of trees
picking fruit from low branches, and my sister’s basket
grows heavy while mine swings loose and empty from my arm.
I prefer eating cherry after cherry, twisting the stems
around my fingers like rings, and daydreaming.
In the afternoon I retreat to the house and sit near
my mother’s friend on the cool stone of the fireplace.
I drink a glass of water and tell her my favorite fantasy:
a pet monkey I imagine loving like my own child.
To my surprise, she tells me that once, briefly,
as a girl about my age, she had a pet monkey of her own.
But her version is far less romantic than the one I have
invented. There is no white lace dress, no black leather boots,
no (don’t laugh) no talking. Her monkey speaks little English
and, apparently, eschews all clothing, even lace and leather.
In her story, the monkey chases the little girl, pelting her
with oranges. There is no hard-won connection, no happy ending.
And I can’t help feeling disappointed: betrayed by real life
with its plainness and rough edges, and by this beloved animal,
so free of frills and unsuited for domestic life.
The woman returns to her canning, and I run back out
to the orchard, unable to escape this fierce new monkey,
who chases me down toward the apple trees
on her rough, scabbed legs, both of us already hearing the knock
of fruit against flesh.
"Picking Cherries in the Española Valley"
Copyright © 2004-2006 by Leah Browning
First published in Salome Magazine (January 22, 2007), www.salomemagazine.com.
APRIL IN MINNESOTA
by Leah Browning
The edges of my anger
have been sanded down;
we no longer bump against them
each time we turn
in these crowded rooms.
It’s been months since I woke
to thoughts of suicide
(however distant and ill-formed)
and I have stopped blaming you
if the sky is too blue
or not blue enough.
We are hopeful, yet tentative
with each other after these long
winter months, wary of unfinished
corners that might still threaten
to rage forward and split us
when we are already bloodied and raw.
Our neighbor spends each weekend
outdoors now, pushing a mower
past one wall of our house. Inside
his garage, the tools are neatly ordered
on the shelves, every rake and shovel
hanging on its own hook.
Monday comes again.
I wake fearful, not remembering
that the sharp edges of my shoulders
have been rounded,
the clumps of my fists
smoothed into fingers.
Outside our kitchen window,
the sun’s anemic early light
falls on grass so green and perfect
that it looks like the set of a play.
All the house is silent,
waiting for my entrance.
"April in Minnesota"
Copyright © 2003 by Leah Browning
First published in Lily: A Monthly Online Literary Review, Vol. 4, Issue 2
(January 2007), www.lilylitreview.com.
VALENTINE’S DAY, AND WE ARE STILL SEPARATED
by Leah Browning
After work, I follow as she does
the shopping. I see that you still love
shrimp, and a plain green salad.
At the dry cleaner’s, her silky blue
dress has been inserted between
the black and navy shoulders of your suits.
She has a red Honda Civic, and I see myself
throwing rocks through the windshield,
or using her own car to run her down
as she emerges from the bakery with a heart-
shaped cake sculpted out of chocolate,
your favorite.
Instead, I go back to my new apartment on the lake
and watch two birds steady each other on the ice,
looking for grasses, while you drink red wine
and carry her to bed.
"Valentine's Day, and We Are Still Separated"
Copyright © 2001 by Leah Browning
First published in St. Cloud Unabridged, Vol. 7, No. 10 (June 2003), p. 9.
LEARNING TO PLAY PIANO AT THIRTY
by Leah Browning
Everywhere I lay my hands
I hear music. Each touch
on the computer keyboard,
my fingers drumming
scales on the bedside table
as I’m falling asleep.
I feel my brain unfolding,
gently, like a silk scarf.
I learn to play with two
hands, in minor keys, with feeling.
Alone in my room, I write
a sonata, then an opera.
The house begins to flood,
seams bursting, notes
trickling down the walls.
You still haven’t come back,
so I have to do the rescuing myself,
using the piano bench as a raft.
"Learning to Play Piano at Thirty"
Copyright © 2007 by Leah Browning
First published on postcards from the program Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf, 2007/2008.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
by Leah Browning
On the way back from Alamosa I tell you
that I want four children. The radio is playing,
and our hands touch in the dark.
Already this feels like a memory,
too weighted for a simple Sunday night.
Snow falls onto the beams
of the headlights, but inside the car
the air even smells warm, and I have to
unbutton my coat. “Remember the time
I lent you my sweater?” you say,
making our history up to this point
sound rich and expansive
though there is little more than
the sweater and a plastic bowl
melted on the front burner of your stove
while I stirred brownie batter. “I remember,”
I say. The ground under our feet is untested,
but still we feel the desire to build.
"Under Construction"
Copyright © 2005 by Leah Browning
First published in Blood Orange Review, Vol. 1, No. 4 (October 2006),
www.bloodorangereview.com.
THE RELIGION OF EVERYDAY THINGS
by Leah Browning
We return at nightfall, shoulders bowed, weighed down
by slights and insults. They fall from us at the door,
as everything beyond these walls recedes. The horns
and sirens, the pain and desperation that invade our outside
life: all are silenced. We join each other and sit,
and rise and sit, in unison. Then, cleansed, we bow our heads,
letting love seep over the table until even the most humble
foods—the potatoes, the salt—feel shy and deeply cherished.
When the meal ends, we find that we are pulled apart
strand by strand, that the walls and floor are as deeply connected
as our arms and legs. The elements have to weave
and reweave as we move from room to room, sitting down in one
or walking out of another. We connect almost as fluidly, bashful
as strangers. Courteous, we pass in the hallways without touching;
we close each door with the faintest sound; we say please
and thank you and God bless you, again and again, as though the act
of sneezing were a form of prayer, and we were only answering
in kind. In silence, we perform the ritual ablutions, as we always
have: bathing in the dim sunlight of the morning, washing our faces
as we undress for bed. And in the end we lift the quilts and find
each other there, waiting, every breath reverent,
every touch of skin a testament.
"The Religion of Everyday Things"
Copyright © 2002 by Leah Browning
First published in To Have and to Hold: Poems, Blessings, and Wishes for Newlyweds, ed.
by June Cotner (New York: Center Street/Hachette Book Group USA, 2007), pp. 75-76.
NOURISHMENT
by Leah Browning
I wake in the night to find you
nestled close to me under the quilt,
your tiny hands stroking my breast.
You nurse and nurse, not even opening
your beautiful sleepy eyes, the lids threaded
with delicate blue veins. This, our
dim sanctuary. It's raining outside, holy
water falling from the eaves, my
breast deflating softly like a jellyfish.
You turn, sighing, perfectly content,
your warm milky breaths slow and even.
Those tiny fingers knead my skin
even in sleep. A smile darts across your face,
a dreamy version of your dimpled grin. You're full
of secrets not yet spoken. My fingers are laced
through your hair, stroking your fluid skin,
searching out the answers with my fingertips.
Why fine bones broaden in your presence, my son,
and why I find, each time I embrace you,
that I am this porous earth.
"Nourishment"
Copyright © 1997 by Leah Marcy Browning
First published in Mothering Magazine, No. 90 (September/October 1998), p. 68.
A slightly different version was reprinted in Miracles of Motherhood: Prayers and Poems
for a New Mother, ed. by June Cotner (New York: Center Street/Hachette Book Group
USA, 2007), p. 83.
THE PATCHWORK POEM
by Leah Browning
Skin scrubbed clean and glowing
after a shower, the scent of shampoo.
Lying in bed on a winter morning
with the baby asleep between us.
Our fingers pressed together
in the dark of a movie theater.
The sound of laughter. Always,
the sound of laughter.
Walking downtown
and back home again.
Night by the river.
What you said, what I said.
I’ll bind these things together,
trim the loose threads, work until
the separate pieces
form one piece—skin-soft,
yet durable, too, because
I mean it to last you forever.
"The Patchwork Poem"
Copyright © 2004 by Leah Browning
First published in Poetry & Company: A Kingston Community Anthology, edited by Diane
Dawber (Ontario: Hidden Brook Press, 2007), p. 3.
| To hear Leah Browning read a selection of her poems, please click the Play button below or visit her podcast. |