Sarah Busse

Lessons

Each footfall on the wooden floor protests,
I am older tonight, Master, but the love is the same.
A white bird through a white sky can be
remembered, yearned for even, as sharply as
a red bird through blue. The love is the same.
Perhaps this knowledge will be useful in the future.
I have learned: anything can become a poem, 
and every object can be scrubbed clean, rubbed
back to its original state, and wished on.
                                  I am no good nun;
I am an old couch in the family room, but this life
has its own choice poverties, its own master,
and its own bleached aesthetic. It blooms
by night, secret, fragrant, only a trace at dawn.