Biting Girl

                                           Bill Sweeney

When I come home, I join her on the floor
in her litter of toys
like a diplomat
from a larger, stiffer nation;
I brush her fine hair,
she guides each new object to her mouth:
she tastes the world.
Her blocks carry half-moon imprints
of her eight new teeth.
She bends to her work
of ingesting the world.
When I kneel to kiss
the nape of her neck,
it’s not enough.
I lick the down
and take that new flesh
doucement, doucement
between my teeth.
I taste her sweet life,
my soul’s home.

   © 1999 by Bill Sweeney