Poetry by Sarah Browning

              ​Nic McPhee CC



​
pain

pain a glistening
     sheen of the shoulder
                of the neck

nowhere but satined
     body, back of knot
                and gristle

head high on weary
     hurting pedestal
                neck

working body that hardly
     works
                neck of sorrow

hold against it
     swallow it
                lie

the boredom of it
     the sameness
                where can I 

take you, pain 
     bathe you
                lay you down

centuries 
     of heart pain songs
                but body –

where’s your wracking tune
     where the pipes and fiddle of this –





pain

pain begs for 
     the long lung of today
Friday, day of forgiveness   
     day of ache 
and sad sunshine

hold pain breathing 
     at its birth
sniff its soft cap 
     of baby hair
coo out your love

to lower the shoulders 
     of pain
to raise the tired swallow 
     of pain
to Jesus pain back to its origin





pain

my love reminds me
              I do not have to be 
              lonely in my pain

he offers his lips 
              to my neck 

to my shoulders
              their clench and sorrow

but in the backroom behind 
              the room most know
              despair runs the show

sweetheart I am sorry 
              I do not know 

how to send
              the bouncer packing

how to lift the rope

​

Sarah Browning is the author of two books of poems, Killing Summer (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017) and Whiskey in the Garden of Eden (The Word Works, 2007). She is co-founder and for 10 years was Executive Director of Split This Rock. An Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, she is the recipient of the 2019 Lillian E. Smith Writer-in-Service Award, as well as fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, Yaddo, Mesa Refuge, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Adirondack Center for Writing. She has been guest editor or co-edited special issues of Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Delaware Poetry Review, and POETRY magazine. For 13 years, Browning curated and co-hosted the Sunday Kind of Love poetry series at Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC. She has an MFA in poetry and creative nonfiction from Rutgers University Camden. More at: http://www.sarahbrowning.net

---