by Sarah Browning
You talk of trouble, but I was born
to the blaze, the kind of trouble
women wake for, hungry
in the clear morning. I take
my time until I don’t: now and now.
I am the beacon of the body,
signaling. I stride the boulevards,
flash on and off all night, all day.
When I lose my strength, concede,
though I’ll range the city no more,
tucked in the aging body, I’ll glorify
the touches and tongues that have
known me. This is what I’ll miss:
that I was the chronicler of bliss.
Sarah Browning is the author of two books of poems, Killing Summer and Whiskey in the Garden of Eden. She is co-founder and for 10 years was Executive Director of Split This Rock and currently teaches with Writers in Progress. An Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, Browning received the Lillian E. Smith Award and fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, Yaddo, Mesa Refuge, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She holds an MFA in poetry and creative non-fiction from Rutgers University Camden and lives in Philadelphia. For more info: www.sarahbrowning.net
