![\"angela-shaw.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/angela-shaw.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nis all lace and boudoir. She reclines, wigless
\nand half-naked in the haze of her private
\nrooms, chain smoking, deflowering éclair
\nwith furtive tongue, bemoaning the pinch
\nof her little miss<\/i> shoes. She is more freckled
\nthan is suspected, less young, and when the mouth
\nof her silk robe unfolds, it confesses
\nher dimpled skin, the lap of rich thigh
\non rich thigh. She jiggles her clinky
\nbottles, sips at her tinctures, weeping
\neasily over this hidden toilette, burnt
\ncurl, slipped hem, the short, huffy cough
\nof powder puff. Her muttered curses are coarse
\nas grosgrain as she totters in corset
\nand stockings, rehearsing protocol, her self-
\nmocking curtsy. But she clears like water and later
\nwill deny you saw her or knew her as she
\nlitters with lipstick imprints spring’s cotillion.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nThe Begining of the Fields<\/i><\/a> is the debut collection of Angela Shaw’s poetry. Several other poems had been published in Poetry<\/i>: “After Sleep the Wild Morning<\/a>,” “Crepuscle<\/a>,” “Miscarriage<\/a>,” and “The Beginning of the Fields<\/a>.” Another poem, “Children in a Field<\/a>,” was featured in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry<\/i> column, and you can hear Shaw read from others at the PS Voices<\/i> website, including “Barbed Wire<\/a>,” “White Picket<\/a>,” and “Stone Wall<\/a>.”<\/p>\n