From Poet to Tiger, by May Swenson

The Hair

You went downstairs

saw a hair in the sink

and squeezed my toothpaste by the neck.

You roared. My ribs are sore.

This morning even my pencil’s got your toothmarks.

Big Cat Eye cocked on me you see bird bones.

Snuggled in the rug of your belly

your breath so warm

I smell delicious fear.

Come breathe on me rough pard

put soft paws here.

From “Poems Between Women,” edited by Emma Donoghue (Columbia University Press: 256 pp., $24.95). Copyright 1997 Reprinted by permission.