Alison Luterman

Already True

A Selection Of Poetry For These Times

Staccato

I’m trying to work at this coffee shop / while a young woman with blue hair / and chiseled biceps, two tables away, / holds forth about how no one / should ever take medication / for anxiety and depression

Canoe

When I was young, years ago, canoeing on the green / Green River, with my young first husband, / I wriggled out of my shorts, eased over the lip / of our little boat, and became eel-woman, / naked and glistening, borne along in the current.

Sometimes The Dream

My student blushed all over his bald head / as he confessed, laughing, / “I have those adultery dreams — you know, the ones / where you wake up in a cold sweat: / Thank God, thank God, / I didn’t mess up my whole life!”

A Visitation

It was very kind of my ex-husband, / dead these dozen years, / to show up in my dream last night.

Needs

I need a hug from you, from behind, as I’m standing at the kitchen window, washing dishes and looking at the one pink-flowering branch left on the peach tree.

Morning Song

Morning: fire of purple princess blossoms, / toddler pedaling furiously on a tricycle, / and the man unlocking his fix-it shop on the corner / with its hand-painted warning sign: / ALL MY STUFF IS NOT WORTH YOUR LIFE.

The Empty Dress

March sky the color of smoke; / Carla’s red hair blazed, a torch song of hopeless hope / as she powered her wheelchair through the Vintage Fair / to help me find a wedding dress.

The Witnesses

I could hear the Jehovah’s Witnesses before I saw them, / two black women dressed in black, / conferring politely on my porch steps. / I ran to the door to head them off.

Old Paint

Sometimes he seems strange to me. I notice that his hair is thinning in front, that it poufs up a little, which makes him look like an aging cowboy.