“Rawlings Conservatory” and Other Poems

A blue taffeta dress on a blue background.

Madison Street

The year of big meals and despair in all the jokes
The year of a settled four hundred square feet
The year of learning Auden went from or to and
The year of sleeping early and often
Another year without cherries, with black beans and eggs
The year of no complete sentences, thoughts, cloud gel ink
Another year of quiet, keep working, insurance premiums 
The year of gross-out Auden drops infiltrating
The year of you do still care some
The act felt a little punk rock back then, forced exposure 
Translucent chrome, bad sound, feedback, recitation 
The year of untidy vitamins 
The act felt old
The year of exercise, of so few notes 
Of hold onto something until you lose consciousness 
Exposure therapy to your own love 
Heart emojis all around 

Mace Street

The ruffles of my dress split open 
Like a flower, taffeta 
It has bloomed extremely 
I see sunsets from a tiny corner 
The left corner 
Of my office window 
I have a tiny sunset corner, a window
Whose sunset falls away 
Like butter melting
My small sky 
My cornflower clouds
I can see, it has rained, a stubborn rind
Of yellow pumpkin melts on brick 
And replenishes
Lichen, sunset, the tiny left blackening 
Smudged, it has rained, stopped
The sun a cornflower smudge
And I am no longer working 
Or patient 
Whose life is this
Is it mine
My warming tongue
On the pane

Rawlings Conservatory

At first, I run my left thumbnail obsessively under the nails of my right hand
I dream of a bungalow with large windows and a porch
I feel tight and tired, rationalizing and thrifty
Then I paint a black cat into a field of green tile
I dream of erasing easy key identifying features of my dream
To begin with, I am surrounded by tight, creeping foliage 
I test my body’s core for weakness
I find a growing weakness
I accept that I cannot stop the weakness
A stranger presses two thumbs into my lower back
I don’t turn around
I paint a black cat into a forest of sharp blue glass
I am awake
I paint a black cat into sky of aqua pebbles
I am asleep again
The feedback sounds like metallic bird chirps run by wires
To start, I wait for a mood to rumble up like a quake
No mood rumbles
I wait and drive, lights all red and soundless in the off hours
The city refuses to erase itself
I erase my dream of the city
My painting is a stillness I erase
No record can exist in weakness
So I paint a black cat into an ocean of violet hard drives
I dream of a bungalow and quiet
I recover my weakness
I walk, I run


Thea Brown is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Loner Forensics (Northwestern University Press, 2023). She lives in Baltimore and teaches creative writing at the George Washington University.


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Footnotes on the First Trimester