This is the title of a poem by poet Beth Ann Fennelly. The poem:

Once I did kiss her wetly on the mouth
and her lips loosened, her tongue rising like a fish
to swim in my waters
because she learns the world
by tasting it, by taking it inside.

I desired it–her learning my tongue that way.

Yes, I wanted to soul-kiss my daughter,
to lather, slaver the toothless gums
and the cat-arched back of her palate,
to sniff the bouquet of baby’s breath
all the way to the vase of her throat

Look at her, in her highchair,
wearing her yam goatee

I like to take her whole foot in my mouth

Look at her, in her bib
slung backward, like a superhero’s cape–
beware, small villains everywhere

Oh, that first day
when the nurses returned her to my cot
so newly minted, her soles were black from ink
they laid her, naked, on my naked chest
so she could swell my breasts with milksong,
so I could warm her skin with my skin,
and so, next to my more regular heart,
her skittish beat would steady–
though I swear when she latched on
all meter, music changed

I whispered in her see-through ear
I’d keep her safe forever–
I, her first lover.

This poem comes after a poem entitled ” ‘If Only We Could Keep Them Small Forever’ ” in Fennelly’s book Tender Hooks. I was thinking to myself as I read the book (just finishing ” ‘If Only We Could Keep Them Small Forever’ “) how bizarre it was that the next poem was entitled “Once I Did Kiss Her Wetly On The Mouth.” A lesbian encounter, a persona poem written from a male perspective, her husband’s perspective maybe? And right after a poem about her newborn daughter?

Nope. As interesting as any of those would have been (if only, maybe, at the hands of Fennelly herself), the poem is instead one about kissing her daughter, on the mouth–in the mouth. What should my initial reaction be? Well, I think I was shocked initially (probably intentionally) that I could only see Sylvia Plath–the “cat-arched back of her palate” & “bouquet of baby’s breath” immediately recalling “Your mouth opens as clean as a cat’s” and “your moth-breath / Flickers among flat pink roses” from the poem “Morning Song.” So I read it again. I read it eight times, maybe nine. Did this really happen? I couldn’t help to think: what if a father wrote this about his son? Or his daughter?

I still don’t really have answers to those last questions, but if that man (somehow) came from the same powerfully beautiful perspective as Fennelly then it would probably be difficult to argue against him. As utterly confused as I was after my initial reading, I could not bring myself to even attempt to condemn Fennelly’s actions. Child abuse? I, simply, could not even think it. I was humbled, I think. The poem was a self-contained argument, finding its power not in rhetoric and logic but in the profound connection between mother and daughter I could probably never understand.

I mean–”soul-kiss”! And “milksong!” Where does this kind of writing come from? “I desired it–her learning my tongue that way.” Absolutley honest, fearless poetry.

Well, this whole thing isn’t necessarily a Beth Ann Fennelly plug, but for anyone in the UConn area come March 17th–Konover Auditorium at 7:00 PM should be a place to check out considering she’s coming to read here . . .