This poem (oh, Alison Luterman, how I love thee!) inspires me to write one in response
in which Luterman’s speaker poses her real questions to the stranger, who frankly strikes me
as a goddess, as does this gorgeous woman (I mean, just look at her face!) Read the poem, and
give it a go yourself. Or write your own confession poem. Take the very best of care and have fun!
Avec amour, XO

I Confess
I stalked her
in the grocery store: her crown
of snowy braids held in place by a great silver clip,
her erect bearing, radiating tenderness,
watching
the way she placed yogurt and avocados in her
basket,
beaming peace like the North Star.
I wanted to ask, “What aisle did you find
your serenity in, do you know
how to be married for fifty years or how to live
alone,
excuse me for interrupting, but you seem to
possess
some knowledge that makes the earth turn and
burn on its axis—”
But we don’t request such things from strangers
nowadays. So I said, “I love your hair.”

Alison Luterman, from Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection.
Edited by James Crews. Copyrighted material for inspirational purposes only.

Photo credit: Sunny Tank on Unsplash.

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In this lovely prose poem, we meet a grieving woman and a rescued iguana. I imagine her,
shouldering the weight of her troubles, when she suddenly realizes…even this is something.
This small, simple or ordinary thing, so easy to overlook or minimize, in an instant, becomes
worthy of attention. Quietly, grace arrives unannounced, asks nothing of you. Nothing but your
attention and willingness to receive the blessing. May it be so. XO

Wildlife
The woman who was saving iguanas opened the cage of the newest arrival and asked if I wanted to hold him. She showed me how to slip my forearm under his scaly belly and bring him to my chest, not unlike soothing a colicky baby, though the iguana showed no distress and breathed evenly against my body, not cold, not warm, as if he didn’t mind being suspended in a stranger’s arms, as if nothing could surprise him in the tumble of the world he’d been swept up into. The iguana was strapped into a thin black harness that made him look like a leatherman from the Castro, an old queer with spiked hair and his wrinkled dewlap. I’d had a bad day, well really a bad year, and the one before that wasn’t good either. My child wasn’t talking to me and I’d stopped talking to everyone else. The iguana was still as a monk in prayer, all that moved were his ruched eyelids which opened and closed over his orange eyes. His chest filled and emptied with the dry hot air we shared. I thought to myself, even this is something.

Ellen Bass first published in Poetry (March 2026).
Copyrighted material, for inspirational purposes only.

POTM archive: www.clearlenscoaching.com/poem-of-the-month/

with no punctuation, this free-verse poem creates a sense of immediacy and intensity.
its uninterrupted flow of statements burst throughout the text block. they read as a litany
that swells toward intimacy. the primary presence in the poem is love, a love is so big,
even demons carry a map of heaven in their scars.

trauma is not sacred

violence is not special pain is not holy suffering does not make angels abuse

defines no one you are more than the things that hurt you you are more than

the people you have hurt do not make an altar to your woundedness do not

make a fetish out of mine a body belongs to no one a memory is not made to

be eaten does it titillate you to hear about assault if i told you my story would

you swallow it whole if i confessed my sins would you feed me to the beasts to

purge your own i will show you mine if you show me yours we have all seen

the darkness now give us the dawn tell me about the joy you keep in the hol-

low spaces between your bones tell me again how you laughed when you re-

alized that you were not wholly unlovable i’ll tell you again how i cried when my

best friend told me that I was not a bad person remember how we used to

count the lines on our palms when we were little how we used to try to read

the future for its gifts how we used to make lists of the things we would dream

of when finally we were free i will make you a list of the things i’m grateful

for i will sing you a litany of reasons to be alive i want to know the songs you

wake up for in the morning i want to marvel at the unbelievable graciousness

of your being i know that i am capable of pouring love like lavender oil into

your cupped palms there is forgiveness like honey pooled in the chambers of

our hearts you are the thing i am most grateful for all bodies know how to heal

themselves given enough time all demons carry a map of heaven in their scars

beneath the skin of every history of trauma

there is a love poem waiting deep below

By Kai Cheng Thom, from 44 Poems on Being with Each Other: A Poetry Unbound Collection.
Curated by Pádraig Ó Tuama.

Copyrighted material; for inspirational purposes only.
Learn more about Kai Cheng Thom.

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