G-NT3806KSJP
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Sentimental Education


   



In the brightened environment of our play
I wasn’t a mother, I wasn’t a saint
I was the character’s father, a faint sunset emerging
In the eyes of aunts and uncles
Red light produced by the red screen

In this condition I entered the Portuguese village
On the day of its festival, a full moon over the sea
We would dance and be touched on the hip
As if we should have marked out phrases
With the attitude of rowhouses, news articles
No one can describe this town’s patron

Difficult headaches shake me, each sound hurting like a tool
Sometimes embarrassed of my excitement
At the theater I thought I might laugh forever
Standing in as the messenger
For those people who wouldn’t be speaking directly





Hannah Piette is a poet living in New Haven. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Hannah’s poems can be found in Cleveland Review of Books, Chicago Review, R&R, Works & Days, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Screen Memory, is forthcoming in Spring 2026 with The Year. She’s a PhD student in English at Yale University and an assistant editor of The Yale Review. Alongside Scout Turkel and Samira Abed, she co-edits Common Place, a seasonal publication of poetry and poetics.