On Not Flying to Hawaii

I could be the waitress
in the airport restaurant
full of tired cigarette smoke and unseeing tourists.
I could turn into the never-noticed landscape
hanging identically in all the booths
or the customer behind the Chronicle
who has been giving advice
about stock portfolios for forty years. I could be his mortal weariness,
his discarded sports section, his smoldering ashtray.

I could be the 70-year-old woman who has never seen Hawaii,
touching her red lipstick and sprayed hair.
I could enter the linen dress
that poofs around her body like a bridesmaid,
or become her gay son
sitting opposite her, stirring another sugar
into his coffee for lack of something true to say.
I could be the reincarnated soul of the composer
of the Muzak that plays relentlessly overhead,
or the factory worker who wove this fake Oriental carpet,
or the hushed shoes of the busboy.

But I don't want to be the life of anything in this pitstop.
I want to go to Hawaii, the wet, hot
impossible place in my heart that knows just what it desires.
I want money, I want candy.
I want sweet ukelele music and birds who drop from the sky.
I want to be the volcano who lavishes
her boiling rock soup love on everyone,
and I want to be the lover
of volcanos, who loves best what burns her as it flows.

Alison Luterman

25.12.09

Dog Park on Christmas Day



Recently Mom found a dog park here in Destin. My parents had taken their dogs out there before, but didn't get to spend much time there. After a full day of all the dogs together in the house, it was apparent that we needed to take them out to run. It was either that, or Coen was going to bring down the Christmas tree (which he had already attempted once). We loaded up the whole gang, Christmas scarves and all. It was a great day. The area that was fenced in was so huge; there was about an acre for them to run and chase each other. Ely, being the neurotic little guy that he is, chose to stand in the middle of the pond, splash water, and bark. They all ran their butts off. After being rinsed off and dried, we took them home. Since then there hasn't been much movement. Most all of them are sacked out somewhere. Such a great Christmas day for us and the pooches!!


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