Four by Lyn Lifshin

DECEMBER 2, AFTER THE FIRST DAY OUT OF THE HOUSE

I could be the
fish who climbed

from the sea into
the razzle dazzle of light

down red brick streets.
Thai spices perfume

them, U Street rocks.
The young on dormers,

on bar stools, their
music spilling into U St,

chestnut smells,
laughing instead of

guns

#

DECEMBER 7

the furnace leaps on,
highs in the twenties

under the ice
fish listen with

silvery plants of
life, the sky

an ice grey,
the water lilies

under them, spring
in their belly.

Stairways of
frozen grass.

Blue shadows.
Beavers’ prints

in melting snow.
Something in the

pond, my own
half drowned

longing, blue gown
of sleep that

can’t sleep

#

DECEMBER 12

If I hadn’t noticed
the pink streaks,

the pond a mirror of
trees on their heads

gone in a breath.
Still the muted rose,

dusky as a stranger’s
lips, there and

then not there.
When I read

your words, not a
part of my body

feels like my body

#

DECEMBER 15


white sticks to the grass.
I first wrote graves.

Gulls make snow angels
where for the first time

an old lover is where
I expect him to be.

Mounds on mounds,
iced bowls of pond.

Schools not closed,
close early. Star

trails burn down.
White camouflages.

His last words,
they can’t be true