Amy Kitchener's Angels Without Wings Foundation
Presents the 2008 Alabama Senior Poet Laureate

DONNA JEAN TENNIS

DONNA JEAN TENNIS, 64, Montgomery, Alabama, retired office worker, has been on the Alabama State Poetry Society board for 20 years. Once a “contest junkie,” she decided to enter contests again, so tried SPL. Bingo! She lives with her husband and six cats. Her astrological sign is Cancer.

MELON MOON


He came when melon moon had risen
in the sky above the pines. We lay entwined,
with Johnnie's warm and languid length
rebuffing evening chill.
We heard his lonely howl, and Johnnie rose
without a glance, ignored my outstretched arms,
and grabbed his loaded gun.

     Damn coyote's in the watermelon patch again.
      I should have nailed his rutting hide and not
      his thieving dam's.

He left without another word, his shadow
long and lean, swallowed by the amber glow
of melon moon upon the floor.

Our livelihood depended on the watermelon
yield, sweet-fleshed fruit and hard green rind
trailing vines that tied us to the land. Coyotes
love the watermelons' flesh, will strip a field
of all but shattered husks, then steal away
before the blush of dawn.

     One shot rang out,
      another,
      or perhaps an echo
      ricocheting in the night.

Silence soon replaced itself with cricket song,
wind rush in the pines, an owl's nocturnal flight.
The bed creaked then; his looming form eclipsed
my sight. His tongue lapped round my breast,
his breath blew hot and watermelon sweet,
and as I stretched my needy arms,
his narrow muzzle settled on my neck.

Donna Jean Tennis
Montgomery, Alabama