#10: The Beast by Marie Howe (Critical)

The Beast

When I ask her what it sounds like
she says it grunts, it drools,

it's hunched over and grinning.
When I ask her who it is, she says it's her.

When I lookher in the eye and ask, is it talking
to me now? Is it the beast when you talk?

She thinks for a minute, and says, no, it's curled up.
She's talking, but it's watching her.

Later that night, I make love for hours.
I forget my name, where my arms are, what

my tongue us doing. I think I must have cried out
unimaginable things and think of my sister

in the next room, lying on her back, blinking in the dark.
The next morning, we make coffee and talk about the beast again.

My sister is rinsing out her cup when she turns
and says, slowly, it's male you know

She looks surprised.


Out of all the poems in The Good Thief this was one of my favorites. I liked the way it dives immediately into a conversation the speaker is having or had with her sister. I also liked the simplistic language she uses throughout the entire poem. I enjoyed the shocking twist at the end with the line 'it's male you know'. I think it sets up the next poem How Many Times really nicely. It reads as if one leads into the other and I think they work really well together. From that conclusion I  was led to believe that the Beast could possible be their father espcially after reading the lines 'I think I must have cried out unimaginable things and think of my sister in the next room, lying on her back, blinking in the dark'.