I am not good at wanting
Now you are farther and farther away, the distance
turning you into a clover in a bed of clovers.
I am headed out of town again, to escape
the feelings you’re sending me. Once, I dated someone
who shot up. And then there’s you, beautiful on the white
bedspread. I’m going to try and reach you from far
away, to call you through the stars. The heart, that loose
instrument floating in my chest. One doctor
could not find it. He rooted around for some time
on my back. Then he found a heartbeat in my wrist,
the one I offer to you in marriage or in whatever else
eternity has in store for us. I can understand
your not wanting to talk to me. Bells ring across the city
at the same time, but nothing gets said.
On being an object
I’m trying to get to you through someone you loved.
Everything’s transparent, even the way you touch me
in the dark to signify a small series of losses.
It’s easy to part when you’re not in the habit of letting yourself
love. Or is it letting yourself be an object of love.
I have a figurine on my bookshelf at work that signifies
something important. I’m pretty sure I’ve suffered
trauma, but that’s beyond the point. If I’m being controlled
by anything now, it’s love. That word keeps coming up.
I’ve failed to make clear the limitations of going to bed early.
Tell me what that means. I’m locked in battle with the refrigerator.
All my eggs are getting old. There’s a point at which innuendo
becomes deliberate. The poet reading next week was supposed
to visit me. We were going to write a series of sonnets
based on monogamy. Irony can be combative. Again, the thief
comes to me in the night. Another point that needs deciphering.
I forgot to tell you it’s late into August. The heat stifles
like anything that does that. Deep down, this is a cry for help.
Different wreckage
When you are between lovers, one a smoke signal in a dark room, the other flush against your bed, a bright light circling you, you barely notice the shrill of crickets demanding your attention out the window, the small dog you would typically stop to pet a small compass leaning towards you. I would say confusion, but it is more than that. Learning to unlove someone is easier when the garden is filled with blooms, however brief. Once, on an airplane that was stalled for lack of fuel, the man seated next to me had me call his wife. I was pretending to be his lover. I have never known what it feels like to be alone. The sky, all those trees today and birds, signifiers of beauty. This poem makes me feel bad about myself. This morning, the top to my honey came off and it got all over the counter. Symbols are everywhere and nowhere. I have been a visitor in this room too long. When it snows in the south, the wreckage is different. Blood on snow gets a lot of attention. Nostalgia calls on an embrace I had years ago, in a hotel neither of us could afford. Hold me in your arms and see if I do not grow a heart.
Different wreckage
When you are between lovers, one a smoke signal in a dark room, the other flush against your bed, a bright light circling you, you barely notice the shrill of crickets demanding your attention out the window, the small dog you would typically stop to pet a small compass leaning towards you. I would say confusion, but it is more than that. Learning to unlove someone is easier when the garden is filled with blooms, however brief. Once, on an airplane that was stalled for lack of fuel, the man seated next to me had me call his wife. I was pretending to be his lover. I have never known what it feels like to be alone. The sky, all those trees today and birds, signifiers of beauty. This poem makes me feel bad about myself. This morning, the top to my honey came off and it got all over the counter. Symbols are everywhere and nowhere. I have been a visitor in this room too long. When it snows in the south, the wreckage is different. Blood on snow gets a lot of attention. Nostalgia calls on an embrace I had years ago, in a hotel neither of us could afford. Hold me in your arms and see if I do not grow a heart.
A former poetry editor for Stirring: A Literary Collection, Kate Lutzner's poetry and stories have appeared in such journals as Antioch Review, In Posse, Mudlark, Poetry Magazine, The Perihelion, Mississippi Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood and Rattle. She has potery forthcoming in The Potomac Review and was awarded the Robert Frost Poetry Prize by Kenyon College, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. Kate is recipient of the 2010 Jerome Lowell Dejur Award. She also holds a J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is a second year student in the MFA program for poetry at City College. She lives in Brooklyn.