What if my sideways smile
slipped down a little,
did not behave? Darling
Sister, love me, do you
not, unbraiding your hair
into waves? Our house rocks
like a ship at sea, our house
hums in the night. Planets
coast by like peculiar eyes,
pinpricks in the glass
of the window. Sing Oh Consonant,
Oh Vowel. Oh Consonant again.
Speech between your lips
lumpy as soup, burning like gin.
Breathe on me, so softly.
Bring me nightmares again.
Annah Browning hails from the foothills of South Carolina, but currently calls Chicago home. She holds a Ph.D. from the Program for Writers at The University of Illinois-Chicago. She is the author of a chapbook, The Marriage (Horse Less Press, 2013), and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Willow Springs, Verse Daily, Indiana Review, and other journals. She is poetry editor of Grimoire, an online literary magazine of dark arts.