I like to roost
in the minds of others,
like a blackbird
in the rafters of
a church—heaven,
hell, the fiend all
below. And the lux
of so many heads—
their hair, black, blonde
and white, spun whorling
from the crown, light
of day and light
of night. I peer
into their ears and nuzzle
the small bones
of their sadness. I grow
amusing, sleeping
at their height. You’ve
got a devil on your
shoulder, one’ll say,
and might be right.
I give each of my visitors
a name—they’re never told
it, but they respond to
it. Their hearts yield
like flesh to a knife—
their chins fall on
their lovers’ hands so slightly
When they sleep, I love
them best—I stir,
slur their dreams
with a beak, a talon,
a warbled song—
a cry, and then some rest.
Annah Browning
Annah Browning hails from the foothills of South Carolina and holds an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. Currently, she is a Ph.D. candidate in the Program for Writers at The University of Illinois-Chicago, and the author of a chapbook, The Marriage (Horse Less Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review Online, Verse Daily, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Southeast Review, Willow Springs, and other journals, and have received awards and recognition from Boulevard, Indiana Review, Blue Mesa Review, and Vermont Studio Center. She is the poetry editor of Grimoire, an online literary magazine of witchy and the weird.
Artwork: Laura Makabresku, Quiescence
Website: http://lauramakabresku.blogspot.com/
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