Six by Lyn Lifshin

IN THE FANTASY

I come to where
there was nothing
that needs saying,
I’d relax in your
arms, each step
absorbed by
your body

#

AS IF IT WASN’T LIFE TIMES SINCE

I waited for David to call,
remember his fingers on the
sheer blouse under an aqua
felt jumper and never sure
if he’d call me again.
How could I not feel any
less unsure what to say
so many lovers later?
Too many ebony eyed
men. There were two with
frozen lake eyes but that’s
another story. I think of the
times I let poems say
what I couldn’t. Lured men
with letters, e mails with
so much left out they
could believe as they chose,
make me up as they wanted.
How could I still be
tearing the skin off my
nails, not sure what to say
to the one I’m sure I
said the wrong thing to.
There’s no time to wait till
he reads it in a poem

#

SOMEWHERE A ZIPLOCK OF HIS MASSY HAIR

when I dream of your hair,
water of a skeleton horse

what I can’t have

like horses screaming
tossing their burning manes

#

WHEN YOU FANTASIZE LOVE

you gallop your colt
into the burning stall

you might as well
picnic on a minefield

You check e mail, Face book

like someone trying
to hold on to

her slippery child
in a tsunami

#

AFTER THE WEEKS

My hair, how it
smelled after
bolero. After he
tells me about the
woman who took off
after her mean husband
left and how he trans
formed her. After
pleats were his
favorite, after the
curls he loved, the huge
chocolate strawberry
I couldn’t simply
swallow as I
could him. After
“so fresh.” How he
must have been
a killer for each
first fuck. On
Monday, as it
froze, he did too

#

THE MAD GIRL ALWAYS PICKED INACCESSIBLE MEN

deaf men she sang to,
the blind ones who didn’t
know her skin was perfect
when it was. She picked
the blackest eyes, as what
was inside was dark and
about to engulf her. For-
get the sunny blondes, the
blue eyed jocks. If a lover
was missing a leg, she
knew she could get even
closer to him. He said it
and she believed. If it was
not her fault, she was
sure it was. Redid herself
from the foundation. She
wanted the ones in love
with speed and booze,
dance away lovers,
danger and agony: a
black tulip kiss she
knows could kill her in
an hour as she opens her
mouth and shuts her eyes