We’ve spent more time
than we have left becoming
what we are, but who could
say what was wasted in that
service, luminous, unfurled
on paper birch, our first night.
Your flight has found me,
and we have what time we
have before hunger starves
us, before whatever comes
on silent wings, devouring.
We’ll confound with fragile
adaptations of our beauty,
make promises to a future
I’ll affix like leopard jasper
beads to a leaf. Beneath
streetlamps, the bats whirl.
—
Jennifer Browne’s interests are accumulative. She is the author of American Crow (Beltway Editions, 2024) and the poetry chapbooks whisper song (tiny wren publishing, 2023) and The Salt of the Geologic World (Bottlecap Press, 2023). Her work has recently appeared in Poets for Science, Humana Obscura, Trailer Park Quarterly, and One Sentence Poems.
