Poetry by Sierra Brown

She will be loved

It will be easier for me
if I say he can stay;
come onto my porch
smoke a cigarette
straight man from down the block.
I am vulnerable in
victoria secret sleep shorts
high, singing maroon 5,
loving for a moment
the sound of my own voice.

He brings up a recent crash
in front of our houses
a hit and run
the screech so loud
chandelier shatter
it had brought us all out
in a swarm. What man
has not made
disaster a pretense
for desire or looked
at a woman or the like
and not felt himself
near death.

When my lover comes out
they talk about science.
She is not sure whether
she is humoring him or me
whether she should run
interference and if it was
my voice she heard like
a siren luring
a ship to shore
to crash. We wait
and the ship passes.
I mean a man.
Just a man.
Hands in his pockets
humming a tune home.




On Beauty and Time
              for Austin

It was the year I drew sorrel trees
and feet.
It was the year I studied the shape
of the mouth.
Every so often Joy oozes out.
Strangers can smell it.
I believe I looked beautiful
when I bent
to smell the apples. I wanted
to be touched
and learned wanting. Learned
wanting when
it wasn’t pulling but gesturing.
You gestured to me.
Made beauty with your hands.
It was the year
I remembered the ears, nose, mouth.
Where no longer
had I to whisper body let me
be closer to you.




Schopenhauer’s Baby

but what about the baby
               in theory I do whatever it asks

chicken born before the hatching
of our egg            long drives along

the gulf with salt and hops
on our breath    i’ve never

liked the waves    pity
for a florida native not to adore

the crashing of a body’s lukewarm
pulse      when we kissed the castles

crushed themselves       you turned away
i pulled toward you like a kite

on a string           in theory not even
rubbers would prevent a baby

that would justify anything
we could do    

i live alone now                                 childless        
1263 miles away from the karst topography

of my survival          i read Schopenhauer’s metaphysics
throw the pages to the snow

when girls come to my apartment
we are quiet

the baby does not wake
it dreams pelagic dreams

does not know the word
drowning            it does not dream of us

​

Bio: Sierra Brown is a poet from the south currently residing in the north. She is a Zell Fellow at University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writer's Program. She does letterpress work with Wolverine Press and is currently working on a design project for the Prisoner's Creative Arts Program. You can find her work at Salamander and Blue Mesa Review.

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