Annah Browning
Annah Browning received her M.F.A. in poetry writing from Washington University in St. Louis. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in English at The University of Illinois-Chicago, where she teaches composition and poetry writing. Her work has appeared in The Southeast Review, Anti-, The Kenyon Review Online, The Bellingham Review, Harpur Palate, DIAGRAM, Word For/Word, and Sixth Finch, among other journals. Her chapbook-length sequence, The Inheritors, is viewable for free online through The White Whale Review.
The Voyages
Maybe all water is connected
to all other water. You go
in the bath, you come up the sea.
Little bubbles of your breath
go up, hoot, hoot, when the tide
drags you off. You were,
a great believer, in sleep. Some day
you will be able to account
for this silence-no fanning tree,
no firm stomach gurgling under
your ear, the small tin timing
of hail, no spun out fingers, years
and weeks. All trails must
fail, somehow. You were giving
up a thought. You had made
it into a newspaper boat and pushed
it into the water. Now the news
is just blurred. Your captive vision,
making out the headlines-
Bloom, Francisco. City, Father.
Blessed Helm.
Nacht
Every night is a blister.
Liquid warmth. A cushion
too tight to move in. Buffer the bald
skin and the day. I leak
silence. I tuck it back into
my mouth. A little too
running-from-your-father
for my taste. It doesn't show.