POETRY - LYN LIFSHIN

July, 2006

Like a Blues Singer

moaning under the ground,
bottle of whiskey on the grave.
Your e mail dogs me
all dark Monday

you’re falling east
and I’m finally not panting,
don’t need my mojo
or a black cat bone

to not call out your name
in the I-can’t-ever-have-of
you. If I don’t change the
lock in blood I’ll mail

you the keys in the drawers.
It’s already like money burning
in a pocket. I could have
used more than that other

April. Now you’re words
on each line, one broken up
like any bad connection. Could
be like the one early cherry
having over the Tidal Basin
sign of what’s ahead


When I see she is reading Thursday

I think of the last
reading, halfway in
to chemo. I don’t
remember her hair
any different but how,
after a few hours
she nodded off. It
was the first time I
remember her with
out a cigarette. Her
husband joking, she
applauded the others,
read a short poem
herself. Half a year
between when he
helped her out of
the chair, when they
left early. And the
news: palliative
only, spread to the
pancreas, brain
stem. I sent yellow
tulips. “She will be
home in a few
days on e mail from
her daughter. “She’s
had her favorite,
pepperoni. I’m not
sure she knows what her
friends know. I think
how she would
intimidate me with
her strength, took over
the room, the work
shop, kept it in control
as I know she will
reading as if there was
nothing special, one
more in a string of what,
like all she’s taken
charge of she is
sure she still can

Just out from Lyn Lifshin: THE LICORICE DAUGHTER: MYYEAR WITH RUFFIAN, Texas Review Press. Coming JUNE: ANOTHER WOMAN WHO LOOKS LIKE ME. She has over 120 books & edited 4 anthologies. 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. New also: IN MIRRORS, AN UNFINISHED STORY, THE DAUGHTER I DON’T HAVE, SHE WAS FOUND TREADING WATER

Her website: www.lynlifshin.com