by Beth Ann Fennelly
His drinking was different in sunshine,
as if it couldn’t be bad. Sudden, manic,
he swung into a laugh, bought me
two ice creams, said One for each hand.
Half the hot game I licked Good Humor
running down wrists. My bird mother earlier,
packing my pockets with sun block,
had hopped her warning: Be careful.
So, pinned between his knees, I held
his Old Style in both hands
while he streaked the cream on my cheeks
and slurred, My little Indian princess.
Home run: the hairy necks of men in front
jumped up, thighs torn from gummy green bleachers
to join the violent scramble. Father
held me close and said, Be careful,
be careful. But why should I be full of care
with his thick arms circling my shoulders,
with a high smiling sun, like a home run,
in the upper right-hand corner of the sky?
Beth Ann Fennelly recently served as the poet laureate of Mississippi and teaches in the MFA Program at the University of Mississippi, where she is a four-time teaching award winner. This poem appeared in her book, Open House.
