DEVON BALWIT

Finding Mrs. Brown

“[O]ur great, gleaming spaceships … [are] capable of anything, absolutely anything,

except containing Mrs. Brown”

                                                —Ursula K. LeGuin

Help me, Captain, find Mrs. Brown.
She’s wandered away from the firefight,
dropping her weapons and stripping
off her uniform to brandish, instead, a frond—
some vulnerable and leafy thing that won’t live
long. You’ll know her by her humming—
fractured arias, naked motifs, nothing martial
or commercial. She’ll be holding out her hand
to some furtive forest creature or perhaps
a wolf-child, abandoned to fend for itself.
Mrs. Brown will feed it tales of community,
spoiling it for the rank and file. O Captain,
though she seems to have no part in tomorrow,
strangely, our future depends upon her now.

Devon Balwit walks in all weather and has recently taken up life-drawing and cartooning. When not teaching, she copy edits for Asimov Press. Her most recent collection is Spirit Spout (Nixes Mate Books, 2023). For more of her work, visit:  https://pelapdx.wixsite.com/devonbalwitpoet