poetry by leah browning

Imperial Butterfly House, Vienna

It is humid inside the Schmetterlinghaus,
everyone sweating in their coats and gloves,
while outside in the gardens it is 5 degrees Celsius 
and the statues outside the Hofburg Royal Palace
are cold and imperious, looking down on all 
of the tourists with their cameras and maps
while the Austrians wake up in the morning 
and eat drink go to work read books have sex 
have arguments look out the window go for a walk 
the same way we would if we were at home 
wherever we are from but we are not there, 
and so we have to unfold our maps and look 
at our lists of places we have been and places
we have yet to go because we are always 
searching for a small glass enclosure 
filled with tropical plants and butterflies 
in the middle of some metaphorical winter. 

Leah Browning is the author of Two Good Ears and Loud Snow, mini-books of flash fiction published by Silent Station Press, and six chapbooks of poetry and fiction. Her work has appeared in Harpur Palate, Four Way Review, Flock, The Petigru Review, Watershed Review, Superstition Review, Santa Ana River Review, Funicular Magazine, Newfound, Belletrist Magazine, The Broadkill Review, Oyster River Pages, Scapegoat Review, Poetry South, The Stillwater Review, and elsewhere.