Alison Lubar: 3 Poems
Foreshadowing
Did you feel it
when you were losing me
[and I glided
like a wedding ring
down a drain,
or like the wine already
thickened in last night’s glass,
slips down the kitchen sink,
or silk spilling out behind of a lingerie drawer
[to disappear and undisturbed, free from your
grasp,
handprints,
breathscent,
everything]]
forever?
The Order of Things You Asked Me to Pack
I put your toothbrush
in your only suitcase
with socks and the good
pocket knife, each an injury:
bad mouth and feet,
teeth and fingers rough
and chewed to the cuticle
[I can't stand you touching me]
and I think of other attempts at caressing
I'd prefer—
one of a real lion, with his jaw locked
on mine. I'd disfigure in godless whispers, the holiness
of my hands holding mane as supplication, throat open in bloodsong,
the pleasure of a final hymn.
Each zipper tooth a prayer, closed and complete like a rosary.
Cleaning Out the Freezer
Everything you left is consumable—
soup with garden beans labeled
in black sharpie, the Belgian beer
in the basement or cases of wine
we collected. [How addicts think love,
like life, as only consumable—
how easily I was seduced
by food: two bottles of prosecco
and a Camembert at its prime,
white asparagus and scallops,
beurre blanc stops everything
save animal brain and satiation,
cows too sick on corn to know
they're lining up for the pneumatic
gun and slice to the throat. I stumble
into our bed for the same fate:
glazed eyes, and roll over to float
out of my body once more.]
Chimichurri, lentil soup, tomato sauce,
chicken bones for stock—it all moves
to the sink to rot as I pretend I'll defrost
and eat it with the same love you used
to prepare it, regarding [guarding] the future.
After all, food and poison are
mere molecules apart.
Alison Lubar teaches high school English by day and yoga by night. She currently lives in New Jersey (though she dreams of returning westward), with a bad dog and an overgrown garden. She is a queer womxn of color/other whose life work (aside from wordsmithing) has evolved into bringing mindfulness practices, and sometimes even poetry, to young people. Her work has been published by or appeared in SWWIM Every Day, trampset, The Esthetic Apostle, Lady Blue Literary Arts Journal, Cathexis Northwest Press, High Shelf, Gravitas, great weather for MEDIA, Toho, and Rowan University’s Glassworks. Follow her on Twitter @theoriginalison