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Since 1996 Volume XXI

Allison Luterman

Alison Luterman’s three books of poetry are The Largest Possible Life, See How We Almost Fly, and Desire Zoo. She also writes plays and personal essays. She has taught in the MFA program at New College, at The Writing Salon in Berkeley, at Esalen Institute and Omega Institute as well as high schools, juvenile halls, and poetry festivals. www.alisonluterman.com

Language Acquisition

She has blossomed into complication;

my niece, not yet three,

has learned to say either.

I don’t like the scary skeleton,

and I don’t like scary pirates either.

In twenty years she’ll be standing, head cocked,

in front of a rack of paint samples

saying I don’t really like the burgundy,

but the rust is not quite right either.

And from there of course

it’s only a short step

to I don’t want to lose you,

but I don’t want to be utterly consumed

by this love either. And from there,

and from then on—well, we all know

how the skeins get tangled, don’t we?

We who are no longer little children,

yet not yet wholly grown up either.

from Desire Zoo, published by Tia Chucha Press