Renee Beauregard Lute
The challenge is this.
While my daughter slept off her lunch in the late fever
of noon, I watched The Hours.
To watch The Hours is to wish for a nearby pen
a pencil
even a crayon or a piece of chalk.
But I was pinned to the couch
by a small body that sweat
through her clothes and my clothes
and there was no pen.
There was a cold mug of coffee
and a gray cat who stared
lazy
at my lap
wondering whether there was room for her, too.
I do not remember the idea
Was it a poem? but
the nap ended,
I found a pen,
and the challenge is this:
To be these two women at once:
keeper of pens
and afternoon cradle.
Renee Beauregard Lute's poems, stories, and essays have appeared in a number of literary journals and magazines, including Bellevue Literary Review, ROAR Magazine, and The Nervous Breakdown, and she is the author of the chapbook Five Stories. She has an MFA from Hamline University, and lives with her husband, daughter, and two cats in Barrington, Rhode Island. She wants a corgi, and is not above using her author bio to remind her husband that she wants a corgi. Possibly for her birthday, or for some other gift-giving holiday. St. Patrick's Day, maybe. Flag Day.