The Divers

Everything she said about other people was true
But everything she said about herself was wrong
Sun angled down in the law of literate talk
Dispersed by dogs. Between sleep and more sleep
What of literacy remained
Made of this grass an intentional state
Fog dispersed by sun and the sun dispersed by open water
Which teaches children to enjoy learning
Forever ago how to read. The dirt arranges mistakes
A small tower no one could climb
Except one aunt with experience
Divorced from the family and avoiding stairs.
Pink makes a fool of the reader
Who hasn’t learned how to dive
But meets an instructor in temperate gardens
Forgotten by years and leaves, dusty leaves.
Three of us circle the temperate center
Talking about fish underwater, a tent
That warms air almost without thinking.

Diving into water prompts each question
Pain embarrasses itself
By its own complaint, all among yurts.
Sheep surround yurts while sheep make a fool
Of vacation. You can carry your heavy tank into the room
You rent from a hotel
Experience making some of us into bad aunts
Who envy the husbands of mature women
Warm and uneven
Bread rises without being called stupid
Its growth denies passion
Even if passion relies on its growth.
Growth makes passion into more than bread
For future memories, an already embarrassed
Anticipation of the future in the past.
Passion prevents travel out of this pasture
The sky renews its vows to Spain

I don’t have a theory of the past
But I have one of the future
Like your skill for coming up with business ideas
How to make a movie with a small budget
By taking your infant child to auditions
Their sunglasses obscure the stage before speech.

As slow as the process that organizes crime
I tend to look back in a forward motion
The same way an alphabet renews its own order
A game of telephone regrets the chain
Even prior to organized lines

Green paintings forgive green
For direct sunlight, company joins me
A line of friends and no one hiding in shades
Heaven seems to float
Just above disarrayed clouds

Olive trees expend themselves and make money
From the landscaping on this private road
Stepmothers and stepfathers enjoy secrecy like this
The woman learning how to dive, how to use diving tools
She seems to be prepared for giving birth
Serene states, a lady with a silver ball
Or a dangling necklace, they arrive easily at the coastline
Where we might be released to slow decline
The rock angles down and carved by the century
Manages my vision, makes me see less

As soon as we make it to the Hebrides
The fog rolls in, terrifying the sheep
And dispersing all reason
Language manages our surrender to hazards
If I were to envy anyone’s mistakes
I could manage distemper and again find it funny
In language that only one person has shown
The leaden weight that ruins my life

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First published in R&R

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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 2026 with The Year. She’s a PhD student in English at Yale University and an assistant editor of The Yale Review. Alongside Samira Abed and Scout Turkel, she co-edits Common Place, a seasonal publication of poetry and poetics.