You like to fight. You desire sweat
and snap of bicep,
thick resource of thighbone,
shouldering aside obstacles.
You like to thrust your way in and find
something hard and real to go up against—
call it a wall, call it
your brother. Call it the angel
who came to wrestle
but was forced to bestow
a blessing. Strength is a woman
with her hand knotted in a lion’s mane.
Yours to claim or disavow.
I wield no gun,
slingshot, nor lightning bolt.
Only the memory
of membrane and synapse,
how you once had to belly-crawl
through my very body
to get into the world.
I live in you as beauty,
call it spirit or flesh,
call it a swift elbow strike
to will the wall DOWN
that separates—let mine be the blow
that wakes the castle
from its dream of parapets and spikes.
Let mine be the courage
of the trembling tongue
that confesses its true need,
so you can lie in my arms, a cub again
at last, a sheaf of immortal flowers.
Copyright © 2026 by Alison Luterman. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 16, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
