“I Sang It in a Love Song, So It Must Be True” by Alison Kronstadt

Sometimes I wish I could stop you from talking

when I hear the silly things you say

Alison, I know this world is killing you

Oh Alison, my aim is true

- Elvis Costello, “Alison”

I was named for a catcall strung out into three verses and a chorus Ballad

drowning in mystery fansites say she’s a pretty stranger his eye caught

at the grocery store maybe an ex-fling scraping out a fetus

with half his DNA Elvis Costello says my aim is true

he might mean it literally No one wastes time on what Alison might say

but I am Alison so to Elvis Costello to anyone

who has ever claimed to love me

Take my name out of your mouth.

Your eyes lied when they looked at me

and told you muse Damsel I’m the troll under the bridge

Asked for peace Got this trap, trap trap Every echo

hissing my name in a hated cadence saying: we sing because we love

Who wouldn’t want a passion sharp enough to carve the melody of you

into the air? I was a child the first time I was dragged from my body

and into verse the first time someone thought their love meant

they could take my name bend it into a circle to crown them prince or

failing that martyr against the heresy of my refusal

I ran into the arms of a boy who never sang did what Elvis couldn’t:

gift me a contagious silence whistling a hole through my head

to land in my own mouth I survived him only to stumble through more poets

stitching me into metaphor muting me to make way

for the romance they knew they deserved If I were love, I’d say:

take my name out of your mouth Set it ablaze I would rather be ash

than what you’ve made of me

Alison means “of noble birth” A princess of course needs not just a hero

but a narrator Her voice only good for singing to the forest creatures

The moral only ever Sit Wait Someone will love you

enough to speak for you to dirty your name

What a happy ending.

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Alison Kronstadt called us from Boston, MA.

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