Burdock
The house cat swishes
her tail through burdock,
its insistent cling a tool
distributing seed. Back
home, she grooms burrs,
tail twitching, cast bracts
rasp the blanket. I have
latched onto you. In that
persistence, what spines
am I causing you to carry
back into the softness
of your bed. There’s no
growing ground, just a
warm, dislodging mouth
sleeking yourself clean.
*
Jennifer Browne falls in love easily with other people’s dogs. Her chapbooks—Whisper Song (tiny wren publishing) and The Salt of the Geologic World (Bottlecap Features)—range landscapes of her fascinations, which include landscapes. Her poems are forthcoming or have recently appeared in the Poem for Cleveland anthology, the Women of Appalachia Project’s Women Speak 15th Anniversary Volume, Steel Jackdaw, Gargoyle, South Broadway Ghost Society, and Humana Obscura. She lives in Frostburg, MD.
