FOUR BY LYN LIFSHIN
I THINK OF MY GRANDFATHER
on a cramped ship
headed toward Ellis Island.
Fog, fog horns for a
lullaby. The black
pines, a frozen pear.
Straw roofs on fire.
If there were postcards
from the sea there might
have been a Dear
Hannah or Mama, hand
colored with salt.
I will come and get you.
If the branches are
green, pick the apples.
When I write next, I will
have a pack on my
back, string and tin.
I dream about the snow
in the mountains. I never
liked it but I dream of
you tying a scarf
around my hair, your
words that white dust
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
IN REXALL’S, MIDDLEBURY
the dark booth held us like a cove.
My mother put on high heels and lipstick.
Fruit parfait in glasses, a sweetness.
A comfort to eaves-drop on the others talking.
My mother put on high heels and lipstick.
My father never cared if we had a real house
where my sister and I wouldn’t be ashamed to bring friends.
In the dark of the booth, I could imagine, someday, being a beauty.
My father never cared if we had a real house.
My mother never wanted to come back to this town she eloped to escape.
She went out with realtors for 15 years.
In her last weeks she said if she could go anywhere she would pick New York City
My mother never wanted to come back to this town,
imagined the bustle of cities, the theater, the subway.
My father sat in the yellow chair, read the Wall Street Journal without talking.
My mother played gipsy music and Cab Calloway, “Raisins and Almonds”
I imagined the bustle of cities
where what happened mattered.
My father sat in the yellow chair, quiet as stones.
Bits of my mother’s red lipstick swirled in fruit parfait.
The dark booth held us like a cove
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
MY SISTER, RE-READING 32 YEARS OF DIARIES
not like the book of
life where deaths and births
are sealed but a film
run backward, a woman
pulling away from
arms and lips and skin,
letting go, swirling
backward, curled as
an embryo, she locks her
self in the bathroom
apartment of stained lilac
as water crashes against
ragged stone. The black
pines bend over like my
sister in the dark room in
the rain. She is 36, 18, 8,
becoming thinner, laughing.
The pages open like a rose,
the words a rose pressed
on a night moon licked her
skin, translucent as her
long blonde hair. From here,
that nymph is a stranger.
Like the rose, the words
lose their color, spaces
fill with blurred nights. But
the leaves, fragile and thin,
ghosts of what was,
smell of something lush in
darkness. In the rain my
sister curls into the quilt
made of time and loss,
pulls the past as far into
Junes to come as she can
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
THE CAT’S YELP IN BLACK LIGHT
Pine needles dripping,
covering cars deeper than
mist. My sister is pulled
toward what tore night
like a child in pain
to where the cat drags
one half of his body
thrashing and tangling
through legs of chairs
no light’s touched.
We wrapped his
writhing in flannel,
drove on winding roads
thru maple hills,
reaching toward noon.
Nothing to do but wait.
We were shaking, numb,
bought butter pecan
ice cream that dripped
down skin like tears.
Embolism. White pines
blackening. Next
morning the vet says
the cat died in the
night. A sack of clots,
a whole heart-full. My
sister doesn’t stop
clearing the table,
packs the car, it’s as
if the cat’s wet fur
and twitching have
moved inside her
