qarrtsiluni

by Janet McCann

after Richard Lovelace

My breast is no chaste nunnery
unless you fondle nuns.
I thought you’d passed on gunnery
for thighs, and breasts, and buns.

Don’t tell me honor is your goal.
You’re out for blood, of course.
I do regret the hours you stole.
Dick, go kiss a horse.

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Journals publishing Janet’s poetry include Kansas Quarterly, Parnassus, Nimrod, Sou’wester, New York Quarterly, Tendril and Poetry Australia. A 1989 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship winner, she has taught at Texas A&M University since 1969. She has co-edited two anthologies, Odd Angles of Heaven: Contemporary Poetry by People of Faith and Place of Passage: Contemporary Catholic Poetry and is the author of The Celestial Possible: Wallace Stevens Revisited. Her most recent poetry collection is Emily’s Dress (2004, Pecan Grove Press).