Sunburn

A poem by Ange Mlinko

Snow on the mountain peaks.
Snow floating through the dry air
on a hot June day, and as one speaks
of making a wish or uttering a prayer

the snowmound shrubs are almost bare.
Rabbits all about the place,
with snowy parts, reflecting light, where
coolness keeps, like lattices or lace.

“Does she know?” fretted the cashier.
“She does,” my son admitted.
For the glance cast backward in the mirror
caught the scorchmarks neatly fitted

between tank top and backpack,
unprotected, where wings would go
to take me to that mountain peak
so I could touch them to the snow.

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Ange Mlinko is the author of several books of poetry, including Venice, Distant Mandate, and Marvelous Things Overheard. She has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Randall Jarrell Award for Criticism, and served as Poetry Editor for The Nation. Her essays and reviews have been published in The Nation, The London Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, Poetry, and Parnassus. She is currently Professor of English at the University of Florida. She lives in Gainesville.

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