6 Poems

by Lyn Lifshin

BUT INSTEAD HAS GONE INTO WOODS

A girl goes into the woods
and for what reason
disappears behind branches
and is never heard from again.
We don’t really know why,
she could have gone shopping
or had lunch with her mother
but instead has gone into
woods, alone, without the lover,
and not for leaves or flowers.
It was a clear bright day
very much like today.
It was today. Now you might
imagine I’m that girl,
it seems there are reasons. But
first consider: I don’t live
very near those trees and my
head is already wild with branches

_____________________________________________________________________________

BEING JEWISH IN A SMALL TOWN

someone writes kike on
the blackboard and the
”k’”s pull thru the
chalk, stick in my
plump pale thighs.
Even after the high
school burns down the
word is written in
the ashes. My under
pants’ elastic snaps
on Main St because
I can’t go to
Pilgrim Fellowship.
I’m the one Jewish girl
in town but the 4
Cohen brothers
want blond hair
blowing from their
car. They don’t know
my black braids
smell of almond.
I wear my clothes
loose so no one
dreams who I am,
will never know
Hebrew, keep a
Christmas tree in
my drawer. In
the dark, my fingers
could be the menorah
that pulls you toward
honey in the snow

_____________________________________________________________________________

MIDWEST

all that sky
a flat black
with only a cat’s
eyes blazing

people wait alone.
Wind changes in
the cornleaves.
People hear it like

a chord augmented.
Houses chip slowly
stranded in snow.
Only the sky is fast

_____________________________________________________________________________ MONET’S LES NYMPHEAS

the long curved
room, the walls

starting to
shimmer, breathe

A Chinese girl
sitting on the stone
bench next to me,

dazed, smiling

The lilies moving
into both of us

______________________________________________________________________________

SEPTEMBER 26, 1996

this morning the pond
looks like marble. Rose
and charcoal dissolving
to dove, to guava, rouge.
Only mallards pushing
holes in the glass, so
unlike the pond, deep in
trees, almost camouflaged,
startling as coming upon
your reflection in a mirror,
just there under trees and
the wooden bar and the
driftwood benches blackly
jade with pines dripping
into it, shadows close to
my hair. What I didn’t have
blinded me so I hardly saw
the small birds, blue,
pulling out of moss and
needles as if reaching into
the dark for their color

______________________________________________________________________________ CHAMPLAIN, BRANBURY, THE LAKES AT NIGHT

always women in the
dark on porches talking
as if in blackness their
secrets would be safe.
Cigarettes glowed like
Indian paintbrush.
Water slapped the
deck. Night flowers
full of things with wings,
something you almost
feel like the fingers
of a boy moving, as if
by accident, under
sheer nylon and felt
in the dark movie house
as the chase gets louder,
there and not there,
something miscarried
that maybe never was.
The mothers whispered
about a knife, blood.
Then, they were laughing
the way you sail out of
a dark movie theater
into wild light as if no
thing that happened
happened

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lyn Lifshin’s ANOTHER WOMAN WHO LOOKS LIKE ME was just published by Black Sparrow at David Godine October, 2006. It has been selected for the 2007 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence for previous finalists of the Paterson Poetry Prize. (ORDER@GODINE.COM ). Also out in 2006 is her prize winning book about the famous, short lived beautiful race horse, Ruffian: THE LICORICE DAUGHTER: MY YEAR WITH RUFFIAN from TEXAS REVIEW PRESS. Other of Lifshin’s recent prizewinning books include BEFORE IT’S LIGHT published winter 1999-2000 by Black Sparrow press, following their publication of COLD COMFORT in 1997.Other recently published books and chap books include : IN MIRRORS from Presa Press and UPSTATE: AN UNFINISHED STORY from Foot Hills and THE DAUGHTER I DON’T HAVE from Plan B Press. Other new books include WHEN A CAT DIES, ANOTHER WOMAN'S STORY, BARBIE POEMS, SHE WAS LAST SEEN TREADING WATER and MAD GIRL POEMS, A NEW FILM ABOUT A WOMAN IN LOVE WITH THE DEAD, came from March Street Press in 2003. She has published more than 120 books of poetry, including MARILYN MONROE, BLUE TATTOO, won awards for her non fiction and edited 4 anthologies of women's writing including TANGLED VINES, ARIADNE'S THREAD and LIPS UNSEALED. 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. Her poem, ANo More Apologizing@ has been called Aamong the most impressive documents of the women's poetry movement,@ by Alicia Ostriker.@ An update to her Gale Research Projects Autobiographical series, AOn The Outside, Lips, Blues, Blue Lace,@ was published Spring 2003. WHAT MATTERS MOST and AUGUST WIND were recently published. TSUNAMI is forthcoming from BLUE UNICORN. Arielle Press will publish POETS (MOSTLY) WHO HAVE TOUCHED ME, LIVING AND DEAD. ALL TRUE, ESPECIALLY THE LIES summer of 2006. Texas Review Press will publish BARBARO: BEYOND BROKENNESS in March 2008 and World Parade Books will publish DESIRE in March 2008. Red hen will publish PERSEPHONE in March 2008. For interviews, photographs, more bio material, reviews, interviews, prose, samples of work and more, her web site is www.lynlifshin.com.