Jardin des Plantes, 1980

Sometimes I wanted to crawl into a cave myself
when I watched the unfortunate baboons
palming their mangos at the zoo across the street,
then trying for hours to lick the stick off themselves.
I felt sorry for them as I felt sorry for the birds
in their high windowless cells—what good all that
red iridescence, all that sky-pitched soar?—
but not as sorry as I felt for myself that spring.
Nineteen and alone, no dancing in boîtes along
la Huchette, no fine-boned boys walking me
back to my room where I kept a knife
and a hotplate and a penlight so I could open
the right door when I visited the bathroom late,
my hand along the wall when the timed light
timed out, the hallway that held the most amazing
smells, crêpe and sleeping animal, pissoir and coffee. 

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Theresa Burns’ poetry, reviews, and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, Prairie Schooner, Bellevue Literary Review, America Magazine, New Ohio Review, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), The Cortland Review, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is the author of the chapbook Two Train Town (Finishing Line Press, 2017). The curator of Watershed Literary Events in New Jersey, she teaches writing in and around New York.