Weird Mother Dream
Lyn Lifshin
my mother and the cleaning woman
who of course never met, my
mother dead 17 years, Delilah in a
city five states away but for the night
they’re chirping, somehow, disturbing
any quiet. Clothes aren’t in the places
they should be. Suddenly two men
from my past call or e mail. Probably
it’s ESP. I’m trying to think what to
wear. I’ve lived in loose clothes
all summer, a wound, but it’s not a
loose yoga pants day. I need leather,
something even if it hurts to sparkle.
I’ve been in mute clothes. Nothing
glistening like a wet horse in rain.
Give me what clings but not as one
of these men said I had. Even then,
leather pants made men look in
the way sweats, even as a beauty,
tho I didn’t know it, didn’t. Leather,
it’s going to take leather now in a pile
to try on for the Salvation Army,
leather, digging at flesh, at what one
of the men called my “cougar body.”
I don’t have a mirror but they feel ok,
a little tight. I’ve got on a red jersey,
a little ragged, not my color and it
won’t go with the caramel hugging
my skin. But the door rings and
my mother and the cleaning woman
seem to keep opening it. I want to
go upstairs to change, but the
stairs, I’d have to go by them. I have
not been in a place men come to
for so long but suddenly two of are
in what Tennessee Williams would call
the parlor. One whose name I hardly
remember is frail and shy. He half
turns his body to me but the other, the
handsome stud, the one who scorched
and taunted, lured and javelined me
away and then flung me back to him is
taking over the room, a king, his thrown
a wheel chair. All the “when did this”
clot. Somehow, more vulnerable, I can
let what I held in a ball, tight as a
hair ball I can spit out, let flow. Now he
can’t hurt me and as he tries to go
and make me a drink, I am sure he’s
a little awkward but tamed, this eagle,
this womanizing dude, this wildness with
its wings clipped. This thing there in the
gauze of machines and rags and brooms
wheeling toward me in chaos, sure
he’s going to stay
Lyn Lifshin
my mother and the cleaning woman
who of course never met, my
mother dead 17 years, Delilah in a
city five states away but for the night
they’re chirping, somehow, disturbing
any quiet. Clothes aren’t in the places
they should be. Suddenly two men
from my past call or e mail. Probably
it’s ESP. I’m trying to think what to
wear. I’ve lived in loose clothes
all summer, a wound, but it’s not a
loose yoga pants day. I need leather,
something even if it hurts to sparkle.
I’ve been in mute clothes. Nothing
glistening like a wet horse in rain.
Give me what clings but not as one
of these men said I had. Even then,
leather pants made men look in
the way sweats, even as a beauty,
tho I didn’t know it, didn’t. Leather,
it’s going to take leather now in a pile
to try on for the Salvation Army,
leather, digging at flesh, at what one
of the men called my “cougar body.”
I don’t have a mirror but they feel ok,
a little tight. I’ve got on a red jersey,
a little ragged, not my color and it
won’t go with the caramel hugging
my skin. But the door rings and
my mother and the cleaning woman
seem to keep opening it. I want to
go upstairs to change, but the
stairs, I’d have to go by them. I have
not been in a place men come to
for so long but suddenly two of are
in what Tennessee Williams would call
the parlor. One whose name I hardly
remember is frail and shy. He half
turns his body to me but the other, the
handsome stud, the one who scorched
and taunted, lured and javelined me
away and then flung me back to him is
taking over the room, a king, his thrown
a wheel chair. All the “when did this”
clot. Somehow, more vulnerable, I can
let what I held in a ball, tight as a
hair ball I can spit out, let flow. Now he
can’t hurt me and as he tries to go
and make me a drink, I am sure he’s
a little awkward but tamed, this eagle,
this womanizing dude, this wildness with
its wings clipped. This thing there in the
gauze of machines and rags and brooms
wheeling toward me in chaos, sure
he’s going to stay