When your heart feels
evil, don’t make it
lie to you. Place your
neck on the cold table
and feel warm wind
rising behind you,
tossing the trees
like a young woman
waking up to thrash
her hair with a brush.
Don’t be afraid
of the wasp prickling
its slim legs on
the hair of your arm.
Listen. Every day
a match is struck
and rubbed out
on the skyline.
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.