Lyn Lifshin

Cinque poemi

 

 

 

GONE, LIKE THE YEARS SINCE THE MOON LANDING

 

but in a breath. It was there,

in a file. A handful, letters,

a note from me in a different

life. “Man with accent

called, will call back later.”
Fatimi. My pink sweater,

the same one in a sorority

gig. How I dropped everything

from a college weekend

with him that night. For years

I kept it. The folder was

right there. Gone as his dark

black hair of course must be.

He was older. My mother,

terrified I’d end up in the white

slave market sent my uncle

to check. Gone like those

words, tho Google says he is

in a small rich suburb,

a most distinguished career.

 

 

 

TRAIN STATIONS, GUILT AND THE FORGETTING TERROR

 

It’s almost at the train station.

Not late but I suddenly

realize I don’t have the name

of a contact person. How could

I have not checked who’d

meet me. There are hours

before the reading and I’m going

to a town where I’ve never

been. On my calendar

for months. How could I have

left out this one detail. Sure

even after so many readings half

terrify, I could wing it, I get

into town and try to figure

something out. I turn around,

maybe who ever arranged it, may

be that name is on my desk. At

least I can’t search my saved

mail. I don’t have a lot of time.

Nothing is where I thought

it was, there are no names, no

faces. E mails tells me nothing.

Could they have forgotten?

I ought to just go but then I no

longer know what city I was

headed for. It was clear half an

hour before the time we

and the time somewhere in

New York and too far. Years before

I didn’t show up for a reading I did

I never thought was truly set.

But in the fog of panic, how every

thing about where   I should be

is closing down – it’s thick,

thicker, I didn’t know where

the door is

 

 

 

IN A FLASH, SUMMER LOVE IS ALL OVER WASHINGTON

 

one woman e mailed her neighbor

“go outside Right Now. Look

into the dark.” In another park,

 a man flicked a pen light, waited

for a signal

 

I walk back from the metro and

the grass is rhinestone sparkling,

its as if stars had landed close

to my tights

 

1/40th of a candle. It’s seduction

and rejection, codes and

code breaking, mating and

eating alive

 

not that different from when

my ex-con lover lived

in the trees behind my house,

the poet with his books of

the letters of Katherine Mansfield,

his long trip to mate,

hiking across country

 

with broken shoes. His letters,

firefly babble, flashes of conversation,

talking as animals usually do\

about sex

 

His bottle of Chateau y Kempe,

a code, blink blink and some

dashes, bliiiiink, blink. And so

when the motel money he had ran

out, my first—tho I was married

years, I’d wait at the bathroom

 

window with the door closed

so my husband couldn’t see

and turn the lights on and off

to let him know I was there

and I was thinking about,

was wanting him

 

like the life of a male fire fly

his life was not easy. Stealing

bottles of wine off porches at nearby

diners and running out to get his

wallet and never reappearing.

 

Some female fireflies devour

the male. Some fire flies must like it.

If I didn’t flash the light so he

could light his lighter in return

he thought I’d fallen out of

love, if it was love not just a

 

tiny flame. Some male fireflies

are better than others. No surprise.

Like lightning bugs, we were working

with a time limit. Winter was coming

and he couldn’t just stay in the

leaves, the snow was coming. My

 

husband thought we were going thru

so much food. Like fireflies, he was

better than others. The ladies went wild.

Enough to have him for a season

bringing a little light into the

suburbs, a dazzling connection,

best, or only, in utter darkness

 

 

 

SUDDENLY GONE, THE ENVELOPE OF SLIVERS OF WHAT I HELD ON TO LIKE JEWELS, A LOVED ONE’S ASHES

 

no, not ashes, the letters were

the last think I’d toss to wind.

Still, it’s as if they took off

on their own. There were

there, at my wrist, everything

else in the file is still but

what mattered, gone like the

wild plum petals, the sweetest,

the first. The only letter from

someone who couldn’t

stay. Gone like that image in

the first poem I ever wrote,

with it’s “snow flaked beauty

in a burning pal,. Strong image

a famous poet said, bring

me more. Gone as he was before

I had written others. Gone

like the one who left

in the middle of the night,

later wrote how he went over

the feel of my skin, called my

body panther slim, wrote

of everything I wore remember

and even if not quite the

colors, remembered as his

words remembered. Gone like

one lover’s leg on the other

side of the road in Nam, his voice

on tape in a drawer. Hours

on line but no photographs,

as dead to me as he is, as dead

as he is. The envelope,  a

life in a slim maybe 4 ounces

manila envelope, clasped

as I clasped him. Gone with

the letters from the man I

would marry and leave, gone

like one letter the one I

wouldn’t marry, wouldn’t leave.

Mementos, freeze frames.

The envelope was there and I

don’t know when it wasn’t, like

bad cells starting in a woman

building a vacation home

she wouldn’t get to

 

 

 

THE MAD GIRL WEARS FISHNET

 

to be sure she’ll feel

his fingers on her

skin. Velvet won’t

do. No matter, it

shimmers. Even satin

is a barrier to touch.

If her arms weren’t

scarred. If she wasn’t

always freezing

she’d wear something

strapless but his

fingers thru triangles

of skin will be

enough. She can

only have so little

of him, small as where

for a 40 minute

dance class

he might touch