Guest Poet: Lori Desrosiers

Lori Desrosiers is a fine poet I "met" on Facebook last year through mutual acquaintances. She delighted me throughout the fall and winter with her marvelous lyrical bedtime status updates.

Here is an excerpt from her recently published book of poetry entitled "The Philosopher's Daughter": ~~GH

Looking at Bees
Among the rushes on the shore
the only bright thing
was a bee’s black and yellow abdomen

Three trials
one of bees, one of bicycle, one of whirlpool
the year I turned six

At the sight of bees
I tried to hold myself
as still as the moon

I don’t usually enjoy
the sound of buzzing
but today the mower
sounds like home
although the bees
seem annoyed

It was the bees’ fault
hiding in deep woods brush
I almost died

Running up the hill
covered with welts
ladies offering jars
of various bright hues
Daddy would have
something that
wouldn’t hurt

He rode up the drive
in his magic coach
with a doctor’s bag
and a hug for me
his baby girl.

The night
when we counted
the bee stings
there were
fifty-two

From The Philosopher's Daughter Salmon Poetry, 2013. Also in Tygerburning 2012.

Lori Desrosiers’ first full-length book of poems, The Philosopher's Daughter is from Salmon Poetry (2013). Her chapbook, Three Vanities, was published in 2009 by Pudding House. Her poems have appeared in New Millenium Review, Contemporary American Voices, BigCityLit, Concise Delights, Blue Fifth Review, Pirene's Fountain, The New Verse News, Common Ground Review, and many more, including a prompt in Wingbeats, a book of writing exercises from Dos Gatos Press. Her MFA in Poetry is from New England College. She is editor and publisher of Naugatuck River Review, a journal of narrative poetry.

The Philosopher's Daughter is available from Salmon Poetry