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LYN
LIFSHIN
RICH DARK
No slivering streetlight
through heavy curtains,
but the feel of your thigh
smooth through the sheet.
In the light your hair's
hot amber, now wild
seaweed, silky smelling,
like lemons and the pillow
smells of your skin. Only
willow sounds on the
screen till suddenly you
move away, stumbling to
where the light goes on
and the rich dark stops
BLUE SUNDAY
imagining that he slips
from her the way rings
do from a finger in
the cold. Leaves. October,
black spots on the mirror.
Separation blues in the
bed. Touching his shoulders
here on paper, he's like
all the flowers that I
draw, bright wild petals
that don't connect to
any stem
PUTTING ON YOUR WORN THIN T SHIRT MY NIPPLES POKE OUT
OF
darts I long
for your bulls
eye to touch.
Jade leaves could
be corridors of
mirrors, your
lips, arrows under
the sheets. Pale
boughs of cherry
won't let what's
inside stay in
side, that pink
sucks on me. I
Dial long after
midnight, fingers
rub into your
black silk night,
could turn your cool
white hot river jazz
VENICE DAPHNE RUN BACKWARDS
the way that sandpiper runs
as close to the water
and then knows, pulls
back, but not
before he's dug
into sea grass. I'm
walking out of branches,
wood, Daphne
run backwards, my own
breakwater this time.
Blue shells, sun
cupped in the arm of some
one who doesn't own
or want to own me.
The leaves he pulls from
my skin are stained
with the verbs of someone
who didn't see what she could.
Salt air chews them.
We dream of Nantucket,
wine in a grey wood
someday. You know I never
wanted a man just
for myself
but didn't know that.
Gulls. Old women
unbutton black coats,
feel the light, dreams moving
in their throat like birds.
They are willow roots
hanging on under
the sand, pushing deep.
In this light, if they
were to unloosen a few
pins they would grow into
their hair, birds blown in the
sun toward cities rarely
found on maps
BECAUSE OF THIS WE WERE LATE, EVERYTHING GOT MIXED UP.
LATER I BROKE THE DOOR. OR, THE LEAVING
I thought it was
odd at first. Take
off your clothes you
said, unbuttoning yours,
putting the Polaroid
on a timer
we laughed about what
would turn up. One
caught us
moving. But the other,
my hand touching you
lightly, chilled
we didn't expect any
thing so haunting
strangely like Masaccio's
Adam and Eve |