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.

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