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how that nurse feels
60 years later remembering
the news, August 14 light,
the shot glass filled over
and over on the street. Do
you think she compares
the smooth skin of her
arms to her 85 or 86 year
old elbows and wrists, the
little you can see of her
as it would be from then on.
If she married, and she
probably did, did those
large hands, those strong
arms haunt her through
childbirth and Sundays when
nothing seemed as it should?
Did the remembered taste
of those lips help blur the
colorlessness?
on the steps of the lake,
the steamy black tar,
hot enough to melt
spilled sherbet
in seconds. The leafy
oaks were dripping,
he said as a child they
splashed in hurricane
waters while parents
figured things out in
the humid sultry night.
In the ornate cemeteries,
tombstones tilt, an
elegant decay, a glimmer
of the sparkling debutante
she had been. City
there no
more.
Only memory
a lover, a letter and you
think, shit, I left what
matters out? A horse's
breath taking race? The
afternoon with a lover
when electricity broke
down and the trees silver
turned the afternoon in
to a movie set of rain
drops Astair could have
danced perpendicularly
thru? Have you ever slid
thru a city and then
found if you could have
picked out of the whole
world the one to sit
across for 12 minutes
or four and then you find
he's just boarded as you
are going thru the gate,
left out as the one I
wanted for the one I
couldn't get into this
poem
Lyn Lifshin's recent prizewinning book, Before It's Light, was published winter 1999-2000 by Black Sparrow press, following their publication of Cold Comfort in 1997. Another Woman Who Looks Like Me is currently available from Black Sparrow-David Godine. Her poems have appeared in most literary and poetry magazines and she is the subject of an award winning documentary film, Lyn Lifshin: Not Made of Glass available from Women Make Movies. For more information, her web site is www.lynlifshin.com.