Lyn Lifshin
Among Lyn Lifshin’s forthcoming books: THE LICORICE DAUGHTER: MY YEAR WITH RUFFIAN,Texas Review Press and ANOTHER WOMAN WHO LOOKS LIKE ME. She has over 100 books & edited 4 anthologies. Her website: www.lynlifshin.com
Her last two Black Sparrow books, COLD COMFORT and BEFORE IT’S LIGHT won Paterson Review Awards and Black Sparrow at David Godine will publish ANOTHER WOMAN WHO LOOKS LIKE ME.
AREN’T THERE MORNINGS
after what seems like
17 days of rain,
and the one you’re with
barking, a vicious dog
over nothing and you’re
caught off guard, spew as
many sewer words as
he’s slogged over you
but it’s still dinner
and you have to sit, stony
across the small table.
Don’t you want to just
pack a small suitcase,
get out, leave everything
behind? Of course
you can’t, there’s the
baby, the poems, the closet
of clothes you couldn’t
ever replace. How could
you leave, your mother
still young, is smiling at
the rail road station about to
start out for an adventure.
When I think of my
mother, smiling with a
friend on a bench outside the
Middlebury rail station,
her black curls, teeth still
white and know how different
the years ahead will be I
don’t even let myself
do more than barely notice
a man or two with dark
eyes on TV news, then go thru
the same routine where
I can try to hope the
night’s dream will not be
a nightmare
COVE POINT
the first place a stranger
asked me to dance, to
not be abandoned on
bleachers in decorated
sox. A narcotic. It was
the way I felt in another
town, at some Science
Fair where I could be
a new me, not the book
worm with glasses no
boy would ask to go
across the state line, let
alone dance. “Danced
with” and then initials
that mean nothing, a
series of exclamation
marks in a small red
diary. A breeze from the
lake on my flushed cheeks
waiting as Pinky Johnson
tightened the pegs on an
old violin and rosined
his bow for someone to
touch my shoulder. With
out my glasses, the pavilion
took on a special glow,
swirl of dancers blurring
so if the tall blonde I
never dreamt even
walking toward me was
anything but perfect,
I wouldn’t know
NOW LETS SAY
you are out in the suburbs
in your little gated rooms
and you’re not even
desperate. Let’s say
you’re not so young you
could leave whatever
seemed safe for a fling,
losing it all. Then the
red shoes mania gets to
you. Could be a love,
ballet, it could even be a
horse you fall wild for,
decide you want your
ashes scattered over her
grave. In your head maybe
you’re Moira Shearer,
flame red hair and the
whitest skin, mystery skin.
Maybe the red shoes are
the color of what makes
you lie, something you
give up everything else for,
let what matters collide,
tear you to shreds. Are you
going to let this drug, this
hallucinogen slide through
your fingers, settle, be
earthbound or are you going
to put on those damn red
shoes, morph into a bird,
something other worldly as
the look in the dancer’s
eye when asked, “Do you
want to live” answered,
“I want to dance.”
