Leah Browning Poems

Skin scrubbed clean and glowing
after a shower, the scent of shampoo.

Lying in bed on a winter morning
...

After a few days, you know how to navigate
one-handed, how to fold the baby into
the nook of your arm. Nursing, that most natural
and impossible task, becomes second nature.
...

After work, I follow as she does
the shopping. I see that you still love
shrimp, and a plain green salad.
...

The snow falls in petals, as if, just outside
my range of vision, there is a wedding taking place
in the dim blue light of a winter morning.
...

He has a tattoo of your name on his left bicep,
a relic from his time in the Navy.

You know all of his freckles and scars,
...

After all the months of anticipation and dread,
instead of handing out questions, the teacher
claps her hands and lets us go home, our
sharpened number two pencils hanging uselessly
...

I wake in the night to find you
nestled close to me under the quilt,
your tiny hands stroking my breast.
...

After a night out dancing, she unwound
her hair from its bun, letting bobby pins
clatter into a white dish with a rose
hand-painted in the center. The dish
...

The kite was a free gift
from the insurance company:
a flimsy plastic cut-out of Snoopy
with a complicated network of strings
...

While unpacking, I find your jacket, bent
into an unnatural shape in a carton full
of books. The fabric is worn, one pocket
pulled apart at the seam. This is evidence,
...