LYN LIFSHIN
Painting ©2004 ANNIE OGLE

WHEN I READ ABOUT ANOTHER WOMAN WHOSE PLEASURE CAME
from texts written on
her body, who takes a series
of calligraphy lovers
because her father used
to write traditional
greetings on her face,
I thought of how it was
your words, not on skin
or thighs, but those verbs
might have been fingers
over the radio, pulling
me close to your lips,
a magnet midnight to
dawn before I saw your ice
blue lake eyes no one could
skate over without danger
of drowning, you stroked
and soothed, sucked
on every part of me
opening for more

THE APPLE ORCHARD MAN
I saw him four times
in my grandfather's Dept
Store's triple mirror,
my own cheeks pinker
than my pink pique
dress. Flourescent
lights, mountains of
house dresses still
hugging the week's heat,
he strutted down aisles
of Levis. No matter
later I heard he
was on drugs, had
three wives. When he
leaned a hip toward
me, his grin of other
dark charming men I'd
never see as danger,
I could have invited him
into the stuffy dressing
room as if that close
dark was a part of me
and I'd been waiting,
longed to lie under
his branches, have the
dark fruit glisten over
my body, saw myself
brushing long mahogany
hair in a window over
the orchard, everything in
me wild petals he could
open and coax to
bloom as wildly

LEMON SUN, SATURDAY
wind chines

Jenny's slightly sour
sheets

the few white hairs on
your chest
     I'm sorry I couldn't
forget
and swing, but my eyes
     were burning

lying now, this mattress
in your old friends' house

lemon sun, Billy's

TENNESSEE BLUES
thru the shade. He's been

playing since midnight

Jenny standing in the
door, parting the
curtains slowly