Dear Elle: a prose poem by Ann Iverson

cream-colored room, image by filipeaniceto, on Pixabay, slightly modified

Dear Elle,

I’m not sure why you changed your name from Karen or why you wore pearls even to the beach. I’m not sure why you had so much hair or how it cascaded when you finally fell and perished alone in your condo adorned all in off-white. Those lovely blond locks must have haloed your head as daily you lay on the floor with no one in sight. Did you mean it when you asked me to visit with my two dogs? Did you know they would only wreak havoc on your ivory white tower? This is not to say that your seclusion was privileged; it's only to say you wore black dresses with Italian-made boots and took long naps on a cream-colored sofa, piled high with cream-colored throws and shams. One time you made me a birthday lunch and served it on fine china at a park across from my work. You rode your electric bike downtown wearing sexy sundresses, platform sandals, and designer sunglasses. Your fireplace mantel at Christmas looked like something from the White House and you baked sugar cookies so perfect but would never give me the recipe. I’ll never understand when you came back from that culinary class in Rome and invited me over for fancy cuisine then served me White Castle straight from the fridge. Some things go right over my head. When you called me late at night or early in the morning,  I hope you know I was only half awake. As I listened to your pleas for me to come with my stinky dogs, I knew it would not be a good plan. So instead, I sent you an oversized teddy bear, making sure that its fur was cream, paws were cream, its bow was cream, as cream as the dream I had the night you died as you floated over my bed.

Ann Iverson is a writer and artist. She is the author of five poetry collections: 

Come Now to the Window by the Laurel Poetry Collective, Definite Space 

and Art Lessons by Holy Cow! Press; Mouth of Summer and No Feeling is Final

by Kelsay Books. She is a graduate of both the MALS and the MFA programs

at Hamline University. Her poems have appeared in a wide variety of journals

and venues including six features on Writer’s Almanac. Her poem "Plenitude"

was set to a choral arrangement by composer Kurt Knecht. She is also the author

and illustrator of two children's books. As a visual artist, she enjoys the integrated

relationship between the visual image and the written image. Her artwork has

been featured in several art exhibits as well as in a permanent installation at the

University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital. She is currently working

on her sixth collection of poetry, a book of children's verse, and a collection of

personal essays. 

July 2024 issue