<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">American Song<br class=""> <br class="">I'm in sweatpants, pouring boiling water<br class="">over grounds that smell of soil<br class="">and autumn ferment.<br class="">The radio is pouring out Bye bye<br class="">Miss American Pie<br class="">so I scoop up the cat for a dance.<br class=""><em class="">Hey Jackson, this country has lost</em><br class=""><em class="">its mind and I don't know</em><br class=""><em class="">what to do </em>I whisper,<br class="">right into his soft pink ear.<br class="">He stares at me quizzically,<br class="">his narrow face part lynx,<br class="">part fallen angel and I don't know what<br class="">he says back except it looks like<br class=""><em class="">I want to eat you</em>.<br class="">All these years I've spent<br class="">pouring words onto the page,<br class="">while the work of the street goes on<br class="">outside my window:<br class="">traffic and yelling and mariachi and wafting<br class="">smoke from my neighbor's barbeque,<br class="">and kids walking to school and their parents<br class="">running after them with homework they forgot.<br class="">The poem works or it doesn't,<br class="">my life has meaning, or not,<br class="">and it all keeps pouring through anyway,<br class="">like lava, molten, relentless.<br class="">And yes, I am caught<br class="">in the honey of my time<br class="">like a bug trapped in amber,<br class="">and I make what I can of the struggle.<br class=""><em class="">Okay Jackie</em>, I say to my disdainful,<br class="">needy familiar.<br class=""><em class="">We're well on our way</em><br class=""><em class="">toward the mouth of the falls now, </em><br class=""><em class="">so let me be poured like oil </em><br class=""><em class="">or wine or cool sweet water,</em><br class=""><em class="">over the lip of the world,</em><br class=""><i class="">into the heart of the song. </i><br class=""><br class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-style: italic; white-space: pre;"> </span>- Alison Luterman </div></body></html>