Jennifer Lagier Fellguth

Dr. Jennifer Lagier Fellguth is an instructor at Hartnell College and California State University, Monterey Bay. Her work has been published in anthologies, journals and e-zines throughout the U.S. and Italy. Her books include Coyote Dream Cantos (Iota Press, 1992), Where We Grew Up (Small Poetry Press, 1999), Second-Class Citizen (Bordighera, Inc., 2000), The Mangia Syndrome (Pudding House Publications, 2004) and Fishing for Portents (Pudding House Publications, 2008).

Jennifer owes her Italian American heritage to her grandparents, Joseph and Clementina Peini. She is a member of the Central Coast Writers and the Italian American Writers' Association.

E-mail: jfellguth@sbcglobal.net
Web site: http://www.jlagier.net

"Menopause Special" from 2005 reading

Forbidden Fruit

I’m on the menopause diet—count calories,
consume recipes with color photos, gain fifty pounds.

Hunger my constant companion, the lean body of youth,
like my metabolism, now dead and gone.

With growling stomach, I squeeze into sweat pants, exercise endlessly.
Secret trysts with Hostess cupcakes have been renounced.

Somewhere, an emaciated saint hallucinates from low blood sugar.
In my kitchen, I stir melted butter, sauté garlic, plump tiger prawns.

Here holy anorexia has been replaced by a reverence for chocolate,
gaunt chic shoved aside by my renaissance rump.

I worship mother Eve, the hostess archetype, generously
making sure there was enough apple to go around.

We’re both tired of performing penance for craving,
then succumbing, that damned preordained fall.

c2008 Jennifer Lagier