Lyn Lifshin

METRO, JANUARY 8

across the rails, the man
with long black hair and
flashing eyes and a smile
I’d have found devastating
as the blond on his neck,
voice full of flamenco and
Lorca, castanets. She is
as pale as he is darkly onyx,
skin a creamy caramel. “I’ve
seen you, yes often,” I hear
her say as she inches closer
and then shakes hands. He
moves as if every space he
knows will warm and open
to him. She’s smiling. Laughs
a little too much, her green
parka seems to be reaching
to touch him as if if she does
not move fast he’ll dissolve
and I think of myself, leaving
a radio station and not wanting
to go without a hook in the
man who made me breathless
as I feel her becoming. “We
could have coffee,” I say
meaning, my number, meaning
just ask. The curve of
my body so like hers as the
train doors open, heading for
a seat where two could fit. Her
voice full of stories, holding
him as I knew my pink lips
over rose leather said who
knows what did to the man
on the air, made of air like
those streamers immigrants
leaving Europe on a boat
tied to someone on shore,
floating on currents
of air like sky writing,
a plea even after the ship’s
out of sight and those
on shore stare into blackness.

–from Rattle #24, Winter 2005

Lyn Lifshin

LIPS

Yours, honey, were so perfect,
a little rosebud mouth, not
those puffed up blubbery
things, my mother says when
I pointed out the models’
collagen petals. “Roses,” my
mother always says, “that’s
what yours were, a nice
tiny nose. That’s from your
father. One good thing. Not
a big ugly one like I’ve got.”
I think of my mother’s lips,
moving close to my hair, how
her breath was always sweet.
“Too thin lips, like your father’s,
show stinginess.” She was
right. A man who couldn’t give
presents or love, a good word
or money. I only remember
three things he told me and
all begin with Don’t tho my
mother said stories came from
those lips, that he brought me a
big dog. I only remember the
thinness of his lips, how his
death meant I wouldn’t have to
leave school to testify for the
divorce. Lips. When I came home
from camp I found Love Without
Fear in the bathroom and read
“if a girl lets a man put his tongue
on her lips down there, she’ll let
him do anything,” and then some
thing about deflowering. A
strange word I thought, trying to
imagine flowers down there, rosebuds
not only on my mouth, a petal
opening, but a whole bush of petals,
a raft of roses someone kneeling
would take me away on, a sea of
roses, flowers and my lips the
island we’d escape to.

–from Rattle #31, Summer 2009

Lyn Lifshin

BEING JEWISH IN A SMALL TOWN

someone writes kike on
the blackboard and the
“k’s” pull thru the
chalk, stick in my

plump, pale thighs.
Even after the high
school burns down the
word is written in

the ashes. My under
pants’ elastic snaps
on Main St because
I can’t go to

Pilgrim Fellowship.
I’m the one Jewish girl
in town but the 4
Cohen brothers

want blond hair
billowing from their
car. They don’t know
my black braids

smell of almond.
I wear my clothes
loose so no one
dreams who I am,

will never know
Hebrew, keep a
Christmas tree in
my drawer. In

the dark, my fingers
could be the menorah
that pulls you toward
honey in the snow.

–from Rattle #28, Winter 2007