My husband went out of town so my daughter and I had some girl time this weekend. Girl time consists of: lounging on the couch watching I Love Lucy, eating chocolate chip cookies, reading a hundred board books, trying on shoes, watching Tina Fey impersonate a pirate on Sesame Street (she had an oddly posh British accent for a pirate, but that’s okay…Tina Fey is my idol and can do no wrong), and practicing our Rockette kicks.
And I read Beth Ann Fennelly’s Tender Hooks for the second time. A friend recommended her to me recently, and I love this book. They’re poems about new motherhood, and it portrays all the complexities without any saccharine sentimentality. One of my favorite poems is a sonnet called “Interpreting the Foreign Queen.” This is how it ends:
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.
The whole poem, and several others from Tender Hooks, can be read here.