The People Who Feel No Pain
Today I let my daughter read a news story about the people who feel no pain, one who walked months on a broken pelvis before she noticed it crunching inside like dry leaves. & I can hear her now practicing in the kitchen, holding her hands under water hot as she can stand it, singing softly: I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care. When asked to define happiness, half the room will describe a quality of light, the sky required to feel right. For a while we tried shooting the wolves from helicopters, the removal of each possible attack before it happened, but soon enough deer forgot what they were, grew fearless & gnawed the aspen sprouts clean to the ground. Last night a woman paused on the hollow of my hip & lingered there, making me ask for her mouth. The other half of the room recalls learning something about where to build the fire so it doesn’t fill the cave with smoke. Down in the city park someone has already tagged which trees get to stay. One night my daughter will want nothing more than another’s teeth in her back; in that far city, in the torn booth, long after last call she is saying I really like your politics, meaning I want to lick your face. Little girl, little wolf. The blade of the earthmover, how it scrapes & shudders, scrapes & scrapes. Originally published in Ilanot Review, appears in the forthcoming collection, I Am Trying to Love the Whole World (Boa Editions, 2026)
Audio: Jenny Browne reads “The People Who Feel No Pain”
Jenny Browne is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas and Honorary Professor at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She served as the Poet Laureate of Texas and has received two Fulbright Fellowships to the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's. She is the author of five collections of poetry, including I Am Trying to Love the Whole World, from BOA Editions in 2026.
I recently thought about how the Young tend to figure out to say “ I don’t care!” because it sounds tough. But really, we lack the vocabulary to say this is not what I want, this is not a priority to me, this will take away my liberties. Instead, we say IDC, and hope that the powers that be will not care about us. But if anything, the powers that be, do care about ruining us in the shadows.
This is a gorgeous poem, one you can read over and over and find new ways it enters you and your experience. I think as a queer mother (and partner/lover simultaneously) there was also a much there I hardly hear anyone speak on. Thank you, Jenny Browne!