Alison Luterman

Stripping

Strip off the shoes and pantyhose, / the grown-up drag. Undo / those soft white arms and their blond down, / moss made of light. / Wash away the sour working sweat, / fatigue of heels and fluorescent lights.

Sources Of Nourishment

All week long at my job I’ve been telling people to eat. I’m supposed to be counseling them about HIV, talking about condoms and the needle-exchange program, but instead I find my eyes drawn to the hollows of their collarbones, to the sticks of their wrists and elbows, and I ask them when they last ate.

The Happiest Man On The Beach

He’s been so sad for so long now. Whenever we talk I have to confront his ocean of grief. I plant my feet sturdily in the ridiculous beauty of this world and offer him my hand, but he seems only to get sucked in deeper and deeper by the undertow. And the truth is, my own footing is none too secure.

Love, 1981

This Thing About Goodness

“I’m sorry,” I say, finally, and she nods. Neither of us cries. My own two aborted pregnancies come to mind. It was never the right time to bring a child into this world; it was too much responsibility. But Linda has done it, and done it badly, done the unforgivable — damaged her own child. How could you? I think. But then, what mother doesn’t? The only other choices are do it perfectly, or don’t do it at all. And how can you make any choice when you’re not in control of your own life? How can you deal with this awesome female power to create new life among the garbage and broken glass of old mistakes?

What We Came For

They had to wait a long time for the harvest to begin. Gerard talked to Kate of nothing else for weeks. He imagined the two of them working their way across Canada, then down the West Coast of the U.S., picking fruit and living like gypsies.

Morning In The Mission; Grandpop Comes To Visit

Selected Poems

Accidents

Leaving The Reservation

Hannah Two Shoes was six feet tall and all bones except for the hard, high bulge of her pregnant stomach. Her thin, black hair was pulled back from her forehead in a skimpy braid, and she wore black-rimmed men’s glasses.