Jessie Brown
Lucky

Whatever happens, don’t forget
to love this self I’ve given you. Praise
the backs of your hands, taut, the wells of their flexing.
Praise this deft thumb. The thumbnail’s perfect moon.
Remember your broad forehead, the dark brows, the way they like
to be stroked against the grain. Praise this belly,
slack, soft; praise it folding blindly over itself
as you sit, or flattening, or pressing against another body.
Love the tongue I made for you, its celebrations;
the ears with their stubborn cartilage of whorls.
Praise these rough ankles, wide, reliable; the warm
curves of your back; the knees, broad, rounded, unafraid.
Love these arms, their willingness.
Love this slim nape. The muscle of it.
Its ignorant strength, the way it bends to carry
the weight of the world on your unpracticed shoulders.

*

Jessie Brown lives in Arlington, Massachusetts, and works as a poet–in–residence in schools and libraries in the Boston area. Her poems have appeared in various journals, such as The Comstock Review, Peacework, and Soundings East, and translations in The American Poetry Review.

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