Before I forget

everything I've ever learned,
I rush to school again
with my case of unclaimed pain.

Your negligence is unlike anything I've ever known.
You allow a sky full of white elephants
to escape the clouds,

while I am punished
for trying to steal time
in small, eternal pieces.

I bathe in lotus pods and honey
at the bottom of a silver cistern.
Large flies anticipate my flesh.

You recline on the lawn
wearing your silver shades.
Sleep becomes you.

When we open our eyes,
we see a crowded city
shake and shift unrepetable movements.

The street fills with people in tan raincoats.
They point their umbrellas towards a navy sky,
so fine and materially rendered.

back to issue

Jennifer Burnau has participated in the Madwomen in the Attic workshops at Carlow University. She has a bachelor's degree in Music Education from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and an MA in Musicology from the University of Pittsburgh. Her poems appear in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mirror Dance, Jazz Cigarette, and other publications. She lives in a 100-year-old house in Bloomfield and teaches in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.