Two Poems by Annah Browning

Annah Browning

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.