Two poems by Leah Browning

Poetry – Issue 4 | April 2009

Refrain

Every evening now I serve you butter chicken
all cream and cardamom on a bed of jasmine rice
with a bottle of Black Sheep Ale imported from England
and later we make love with the lights turned off
for the first time in almost a month
and I don’t know what any of this means
the night that clicks down like a worn but well-loved record
from a happier time even as we sit at the table
with cloth napkins in our laps and warm food
in our mouths that don’t remember how to speak
or how to say goodbye.

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Leah Browning has authored three nonfiction books for teens and pre-teens. Her fiction, poetry, essays, and articles have also appeared in a variety of publications including Queen’s Quarterly and Tipton Poetry Journal, on a broadside from Broadsided Press, on postcards from the program Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf, and in several anthologies. She is editor of the Apple Valley Review. Though the journal is a product of her time in Minnesota, she is originally from New Mexico and still longs for the mountains. Visit her website.

Read our current issue, Issue 4 | April 2009:

Literary Bohemian

Poetry – Issue 4 | April 2009