Two Poems by Melanie Browne

Flower

He was the kind of
guy who wanted
me to wrap
my hands
around his throat,
in spite of the frostbite,
he wanted me
to do something
with all that
energy,
the night he
pulled me
to the ground
he dropped his
cigarette,
after he
finished,
I found it,
and stuck it in
my hair like
a degenerate
flower



The Suggestion

She suggested that
the next time I saw
my lover, he
might appear to
me as a monster,
a manifestation,

a ghoul of some kind,
so I tried to avoid him,

I studied
the large eye spots
on a moth that
had pinned
itself to the
ceiling in an
absurd manner,

it was larger
than any moth
I had ever seen,

I was glued
to the beauty of
the ugly creature,
and never again
saw my lover,

who I heard
was once sighted
walking around
the gorge near
Mt. St. Helens,

not wearing any
clothes and
reading
Kierkegaard