Two by Lyn Lifshin

JANUARY 7 1985

east dissolves
like a man who
is just cigar
smoke by morning.
Ashes blow in
to the bread,
the cat throws up
what she gulped
down. In the
mail box, only
letters with
windows

#

THAT APRIL

the light on
Chinese dogwood

more substantial
than my own

body. The
bed a pool

with no bottom
where I treaded

water, pulled
at the

nothing
between us

- Both poems originally appeared in Joey and the Black Boots #20 (1998)