The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Tue 2/5/2008)

[RetroLounge]

Interpreting the Foreign Queen

I rush home after class to slurp her thigh,
to pounce on baby belly, press my lips deep
to spray wet-raspberry kisses. They make her writhe.
I'm spilling giggles, nibbling ticklish feet.
My husband, the anti-tickler, disapproves.
He says she'd just been resting in his lap,
she'd just had food (she's always just had food)—
now, overstimulated, she won't nap.
He swears I shouldn't toss her, not so high.
She gives a shriek—pure terror, pure delight?
We read our own emotions in her eyes.
If only she could speak to say who's right—
to say I am. For him, I put her down.
Just two more days till he goes out of town.

Beth Ann Fennelly

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Beth Ann Fennelly is from Chicago and received her MFA from the University of Arkansas. She was the 1998-1999 Diane Middlebrook Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, and she has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her poems have appeared in The American Scholar, The Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, and TriQuarterly; they have been anthologized in The Pushcart Prize 2001, The Penguin Book of the Sonnet: 500 Years of a Classic Tradition in English, Poets of the New Century, and The Best American Poetry 1996. Her first book, Open House, published by Zoo Press, won The 2001 Kenyon Review Prize. Her latest book, Tender Hooks, was published by W. W. Norton in March, 2004

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:hi:

RL

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. Hey

:hi: I will get back to reading and commenting. I have been sick with the crud for about 5 days now. Anyway, my post is my way of bkmrking to read at my leisure. Thanks. :donut:

[hisownpetard]

2. Sweet!

Thanks, RL!
You're the best.

[BlueIris]

3. Kick.