Heather M. Browne

Uninhabited

Twelve picture frames hang empty

tattooing this hallway wall

thirty-six cent nails bent

remembering nothing

Sometimes you miss the vein

or recollections scatter

photos, like skin, tears from misuse

and vacant frames crack

There’s too much air in space

Corners don't match as they should

nails pounded into boards

determinedly hammered to join

enshrining some missing memory

Like a owner’s contract uninhabited

Living room panels once filled with laughter crosses covered in scars

or coffins tops pressed down hard to shut

words silent or abandoned

I look into each deserted hole

stained walls from smoke and ash

their singeing burn freckling

breaking the wall's skin

leaving just a welt and scar

*first published in Boston Literature

Discarded

She’s going through the change.

Discarded

like tacky pennies.

Useless

as cigarette butts

or tasteless wads

of Juicy Fruit.

Everything loses flavor with age.

Her body is an old bathroom wall heater

with smoky orange coils rattling.

A different decades’ model

charged obsolete,

unresponsive.

She’s cold now,

or suffering from the flu,

and nauseous.

With flashes of heat soaking,

she’s left out,

hanging,

to dry.

Heather M. Browne is a faith-based psychotherapist, recently nominated for the Pushcart Award, published in the Orange Room, Boston Literary Review, Page & Spine, Eunoia Review, Poetry Quarterly, Red Fez, Electric Windmill, Apeiron, The Lake, KNOT, and mad swirl. Red Dashboard published two collections: Directions of Folding and Altar Call of Trumpets.