Quarantine, Early Days
Dryfork, WV
So far, I am one of the fortunate ones
Away in the hills, cocooned
..........by birdsong and love–
Lichen pale and slow on the trees
..........just outside the kitchen window
..........Onions
Bananas we buy green
..........ripen–we believe in that much
..........future, at least
Red bud tree begins its journey
..........In the evening, the sweet siren
..........of spring peepers
..........and later our own music
..........serenades the wooden house
I tell you of the years
..........I survived alone,
..........and now
..........in this time of terror, you
So far, we are among the fortunate ones
..........Gin
..........Potatoes and parsley
..........Fresh eggs
Each slight cough a fear–hiking
..........through bog and beauty–
is that a tightening of breath
or simply middle age
slower than we were before we found
..........one another before I brought
your hand to my chest where we believe
the heart holds hurt and held it there against me
..........with me
..........in fear, foreboding
Our bodies taking what we can
..........of one another, while they can
Pinch and slap and take and live
..........To live
My love, I’ve given you what I could
..........So far
..........May I open further
When else, if not now
..........When the red bud blooms
Sarah Browning
Sarah Browning is the author of the collections Killing Summer and Whiskey in the Garden of Eden. Co-founder and past Executive Director of Split This Rock, she currently teaches with Writers in Progress. Browning received the Lillian E. Smith Award and fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Yaddo, Mesa Refuge, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She holds an MFA in poetry and creative nonfiction from Rutgers University-Camden and lives in Philadelphia. More: www.sarahbrowning.net.