Fifteen

By Leslie Monsour b. 1948 Leslie Monsour

The boys who fled my father's house in fear

Of what his wrath would cost them if he found

Them nibbling slowly at his daughter's ear,

Would vanish out the back without a sound,

And glide just like the shadow of a crow,

To wait beside the elm tree in the snow.

Something quite deadly rumbled in his voice.

He sniffed the air as if he knew the scent

Of teenage boys, and asked, "What was that noise?"

Then I'd pretend to not know what he meant,

Stand mutely by, my heart immense with dread,

As Father set the traps and went to bed.

Source: The Alarming Beauty of the Sky (Red Hen Press, 1998)

Biography

Poet Leslie Monsour was born in Hollywood, California, but grew up in Mexico City, Chicago, and Panama. She attended Scripps College in Claremont, California, and the Canal Zone College in Panama, and earned a BA in English literature from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she also minored in Hispanic literature. She is the author of the letterpress edition Indelibility (1999); the chapbooks Earth’s Beauty, Desire, . . .

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