In Brian Burch’s “Allison Poem 18,” a return—presumably of Allison, the addressee implied by the title—sets off a quiet sequence of restorations. The poem’s central tension lies in what “normal” means when someone comes back: not a dramatic homecoming but a rewoven dream-veil, a city of cardboard cutouts righting itself, and finally a belated act of self-care. The title’s ordinal, “18,” hints at an ongoing sequence, but even without that context the poem stands as a study of how intimacy and estrangement coexist in routine.
The poem is built from four tercets, each moving through a similar syntactic pattern: a declarative statement opens, a concrete image fills the middle, and the stanza closes with a verb phrase that shifts the image into a state. Very little punctuation appears, and the lines are short, which gives the piece a breath-like, unhurried pace. There is no rhyme scheme, but the poem has a loose rhythm created by line endings that often land on nouns—dreams, cutouts, city, back, plants—so that objects acquire weight. The first stanza, “With your return / the veil of dreams / is rewoven,” immediately establishes the returning person as an agent of transformation. The phrase “veil of dreams” carries romantic or mystical overtones, yet “rewoven” makes the process sound patient, even mechanical, as if dreaming is a fabric that can be repaired. That paradox sets the tone: the speaker does not exclaim; they observe.
The second stanza grounds the transformation in a surprising image: “the cardboard cutouts / of the city / return to normal.” Here the urban world is presented as flat, artificial, perhaps a stage set. Calling the city “cardboard cutouts” suggests that during the other person’s absence, the world lost its depth or reality; with the return, even that flimsy scenery stabilizes. The word “normal” is deliberately flat, resisting celebration. The city does not bloom or brighten—it merely goes back to being what it was, however unconvincing. This understated language matters: the poem measures emotional change in small, almost deflating adjustments rather than grand gestures.
The third stanza introduces the poem’s sharpest turn. “The coldness / at my back / is displayed” makes physical a feeling of distance or neglect. The phrase “at my back” suggests something unseen by the speaker, something they can only sense indirectly; “displayed” implies exposure, as if the return has illuminated what was previously hidden. Where the first two stanzas describe restoration, this one reveals a cost or a truth: the relationship contains a coldness that cannot be rewoven into warmth. The verb “displayed” is especially interesting because it belongs to public presentation—exhibits, shop windows, notices—yet here it is applied to an intimate, uncomfortable sensation. The speaker does not say the coldness is felt or acknowledged; it is put on view, perhaps to the returning person or to the speaker themselves.
The final tercet delivers the poem’s most human and understated gesture: “and I’ve remembered / to water / my plants.” After the dream-veil and the cardboard city and the displayed coldness, this ending returns to the domestic and the ordinary. Watering plants is an act of care that requires regular attention; forgetting it can be a sign of depression, distraction, or emotional upheaval. Remembering to water them, then, becomes a tiny victory—a sign that the speaker is reconnecting with life’s small responsibilities. The contraction “I’ve remembered” has a conversational casualness that contrasts with the more formal “is rewoven” and “is displayed,” grounding the poem’s final movement in the speaker’s own voice. That the poem ends on “plants” rather than the returning person also shifts the focus: the return may have reset the world, but the speaker’s attention lands on what they can nurture themselves.
What makes “Allison Poem 18” significant is its refusal to exaggerate. A lesser poem might treat a lover’s return as pure joy or pure pain; Burch’s speaker instead holds both in suspension—dreams are rewoven, normalcy is restored, but coldness is also exposed, and the only reliable response is a small act of maintenance. The poem finds its emotional weight not in dramatic imagery but in the gaps between flat statements. By pairing cosmic images like the “veil of dreams” with deliberately ordinary ones like watering plants, it suggests that intimacy is not always a grand narrative; sometimes it is the quiet resumption of routines, with all their unspoken coldness still visible at one’s back. The reader is left with a sense of fragile equilibrium, as if the speaker is learning to live with both the return and the distance it reveals.