Metrical Friday: A Little Tooth
A Little Tooth
By Thomas Lux
Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It’s all
over: she’ll learn some words, she’ll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,
your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It’s dusk. Your daughter’s tall.
14. January 2007 at 11:45 am :
One of those great poems that make me wish poets where equally inspired by sons. I really need a daughter to read Yeats’ “A Prayer For My Daughter” over in the small hours. Hmm. Have to have a word with supermum