2020 this fucking year 
	for MR

four years ago we slow 
danced to the jukebox 
at the Cantab Lounge
scene of our youth
barstool-slumped 
regulars cool to
the heat of 
our nostalgia today 
news of your gone
open on my phone my breath
lost in the kitchen’s heave
snapshots on the web
your sexgoofy grin
35 years since 
I bit it not 
even this stupid virus
took you
        contrarian to the end

Sarah Browning is the author of two books of poems, Killing Summer (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017) and Whiskey in the Garden of Eden (The Word Works, 2007). She teaches poetry workshops for Writers in Progress and is co-founder and for 10 years was Executive Director of Split This Rock in Washington, DC. An Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, she is a recipient of the Lillian E. Smith Writer-in-Service Award, as well as fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, Yaddo, Mesa Refuge, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Adirondack Center for Writing. She has been guest editor or co-edited special issues of Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Origins, The Delaware Poetry Review, and POETRY magazine. Browning now lives in Philadelphia and holds an MFA in poetry and creative nonfiction from Rutgers University Camden. More at: www.sarahbrowning.net