Sample Poems by Allison Joseph

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Petition

Come rushing back to me, hasty
as a lover returned from war,
wounds ready for salve, salvation,

your ruby torrent of language
cascading like falls, delivering me
from drought, from the parched well

of a silent throat, mute mind.
Come slithering back to stroke
the resolute bones of these fingers,

make them flutter in anticipation,
in hope new phrases will tumble
onto the page, humble and humid,

seductive as sand saved from
footprints, sunwarmed and smooth.
I am the host these phrases need,

conduit for their impact,
conveyor of their import,
messenger wearied by silence,

blankness no kind of joy.
Come back to this cluttered
room, its lamp and chair,

its couch freighted by books—
bring your hymns and psalms
to dwell again among

my sinkful of dishes,
my scatterings of pencils,
my pockets full of change.

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Ode to My Mole

Blip atop my upper lip,
sexy blotch I slowly lick
as if savoring a spot
of stray chocolate,
some doctor would love
to snip you from my face,
neuter you to a scar
too negligible to notice.
But we’ve been together
longer than the most faithful
of couples, more comfortable
than widows and their grief.
Dark little moon,
dirty bulb, button to nowhere,
how I wish you could
change color—swirl red
or green, addled as a
mood ring or lava lamp.
I lay my fingertip on you
as if to shush your detractors,
fools who name you flaw
without ever caressing you,
never sliding tongues
over you—licorice dot,
tiny black nubbin, risky
trick I cannot, will not hide.

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40 Plus

is a territory where birth control pills
meet blood pressure pills, heartbreak
meeting heart attacks, acne migrating
from face to back, blemishes greeting

wrinkles in an embrace no cosmetic
can erase. A land of fibroids and fibs,
bleeding stopping, starting, hiding
deep one month, spilling relentlessly

the next, cysts studding wombs
such ugly juicy jewels, pomegranate
seeds never to be spat away. A place
of initials—MRI, BMI, SSI, with AARP

looming ever closer each year,
though you could use those discounts
right now, two sets of tuition bills
driving you past the poorhouse

to debtor’s prison, though you vowed
to finish your degree before your youngest
finished hers, graduation gowns paid for
with loans, full-time jobs, cards—both

credit and debit, with receding hairlines
and descending bustlines. Your mother’s
slipping down stairs, your dad’s slipping
past hope into memory lapses you

don’t recognize and that don’t recognize
you. Armed with mini-skirts and maxi-
thins, that twenty-year-old version
of your self vowed you’d never reside

here, never even visit, but here you are
watching for bone loss, praying for your bladder,
hoping bifocals don’t turn trifocal.
But what if they do? So much left to see, stroke, taste,

sample flavors to ferret out
with a practiced tongue, all those
years of licking finally paying off,
some skills only finer with age.

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Ann Onymous

Voice barely above a whisper, she’s the woman
who speaks when no one listens, misshapen wig
perched on her head so precariously it may
as well be a fish, koi floating atop a pond

deep with wishes. Her scent is the scent
of bars of hotel soap, so nondescript you don’t
bother to pick it up, to inhale her like you breathe
in everyone else, her faint odor beneath even

your contempt, your judgment. On the subway,
you loom above her, dangle your wet umbrella
over her nest of synthetic curls, tangle of bristles,
unholy clump you drip your rain on, her eyes

beseeching you to shift your stance, move away,
leave her damp and speechless. Was she ever
pretty, or was she middle-aged frumpy at five,
fifteen, or even twenty? Every office temp

you’ve ever known, she’s Ms. Steno Pad,
Ms. Sensible Shoes, Ms. Botched Home Perm.
Even her maiden name doesn’t like her,
lost in the mesh of other people’s mouths.

But when she steps off the subway
and into the vestibule of her most ancient
favorite church, when she dons those robes
of robin’s egg blue and dove gray and steps

into her soloist’s spot in the choir loft,
she’s invincible, voice pealing out and over
the congregation’s turmoil, cartloads of sin,
stunned assembled masses more tired

than poor suddenly lifted by a voice
so powerful it subsumes any calamity,
so pristine even the guilty rise cleansed,
ready for resurrection in their finite faith.