Jane is smart, but not as smart as her husband.
Jane was smart, but not as smart as her father.
Jane is smart enough to know her mother
should not have let Jane know
that Jane’s derelict brother outscored Jane
on the IQ test. Sometimes you have to hide
your light under a bushel, Jane once heard
a professor tell his junior colleague.
His colleague couldn’t stop talking. She couldn’t
P is for Prologue
Jennifer Habel
Jennifer Habel is the author of Good Reason, winner of the Stevens Poetry Manuscript Competition. Her poems have appeared in the Believer, Gulf Coast, the Massachusetts Review, the Southeast Review, and elsewhere.