Lyn Lifshin

"LAKE CHAMPLAIN"

We could hear Louis Armstrong
if the wind blew right.
Across the lake, we
listened to the baby

sitter's stories
of what they did to children
in Germany in the tunnels,
my mother's cigarette, a

firefly on the porch across
the dark jade grass, a
night light. I imagined
hair straight as the

girl at the rink with
one green eye, one blue
one, her gaze hypnotic
as the stories of what

people might do. I
didn't know what
might uncoil in the night.
Or that, though I felt

I was storing up sun,
catching light like
minnows, in the fall
ahead there wouldn't
be one night I didn't

wake up screaming
in dreams of fire

"FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL"

my mother in the doorway
getting smaller as she would,
a kite burning my palm
as the wind jolts it from
me, a thud in my belly
that even at six wasn't
flat as I'd like it to be.
Mrs. Butterfield, a ship
that could take me where
my mother wouldn't go
like a flotilla of lovers,
steaming closer as if she
could block what I was
leaving behind, my mother
in a worn coat already
counting the hours

"GOING TO THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL"

once a year, bundled in wool
pea coats and snow pants,
mufflers dotted with ice crystals
tightly around our faces so the
incense we were sure would be
too thick to breathe in wouldn't
make us sneeze. Under our
snow pants, soft corduroy jeans
and our thickest gloves, covered
mittens: we had heard about
rulers smashing bones and skin,
that patent leather shoes were
forbidden. Something about the
stained glass light on the pale
nuns with enormous crosses
and rosaries kept us huddled and
close, walking with only side-
long glances at the Jesus with
bleeding chest, as scary as The
Thing where Jessica, whose
father was a minister, shrieked
when the blob filled the screen.
We didn't know why the Catholic
girls couldn't come to our school
but would come later, in high
school. Or why everything
had a smell we never smelled
anywhere else, wondered how
we'd ever catch up in Latin when
we had to. The dark haired girls
with their dangling faces of
Mary they kissed before a ball
game and tests seemed as exotic
as what was hidden under their
white confirmation dresses,
flesh later we heard would writhe
and twist and do the wild thing
since it would be ok once
they confessed

"SOME WINTERS CHAMPLAIN FROZE"

always with places
where the ice was
too soft to hold the
cars that flaunted
their metal. Otter
Falls grew thick
crusty beards of ice.
St Mary's against
the salmon sky.
Walking over the
bridge was freezing.
I wanted stories of
my father in a cold
hut in Russia without
radios like ours, only
wind and the chickens.
I wanted a story of
sleeping in straw
with horses' breath
for a fire, of silver
moon, black pines

"SITTING IN THE BROWN CHAIR WITH LETS PRETEND ON THE RADIO"

I don't think how the
m and m's that soothe
only made my fat legs
worse. I'm not thinking
how my mother will
die, of fires that could
gulp a mother up. leave
me like Bambi. I'm not
going over the baby sitter's
stories of what they did to
young girls in tunnels, of
the ovens and gas or have
nightmares I'll wake up
screaming for one whole
year wanting someone to
lie near me, hold me as if
from then on no one can get
close enough. I don't hear
my mother and father yelling,
my mother howling that if
he loved us he'd want to buy
a house, not stay in the apart-
ment he doesn't even pay
her father rent for but get
a place we wouldn't be
ashamed to bring friends.
What I can drift and dream
in is more real. I don't want
to leave the world of golden
apples and silver geese. To
make sure, I close my eyes,
make a wish on the first hay
load of summer then wait
until it disappears

"LYING OUT IN THE FIELDS WHERE THERE'D BE WILD STRAWBERRIES"

only the leaves
that March afternoon,
the sun a glow we
hardly saw the months
of snow. We lay on
our backs. No, I told
my mother later,
the ground was dry.
Birds all around,
dandelions we opened
already the palest
color of sun. My green
parka on the lush
green hill, our eyes
closed, smelling
the smell of things
growing: hair, summer
and tho by mid afternoon,
we'd shiver in the shade,
our skin stayed pink,
sun kissed this early

"THE MAD GIRL LONGS FOR NEW MEXICO"

before she bent
over backwards
like someone who
dumped her like
a too soft bed
as edges of clouds
turned moons lacy.
Apache ghosts
in her wrists, his
eyes were turquoise,
his tongue a prairie
dog hunting all
night in the kiva
of her spread
thighs under
ground as pepper
leaves arched
toward their
own light

"THE MAD GIRL DREAMS OF NEW MEXICO, WAKES UP SHAKING"

Joshua Tree Motel
her thighs a
pomegranate splitting,
staining sheets under
his hair as stars
glued mesquite to the
blue dust of her
belly and the
rattle snake of his
words slithered over
tequila lips he'd
chewed, felt the
sting of later

"THE MAD GIRL CLOSES THE SHUTTERS ON FRIDAY"

in blue light
her arms wrap
around herself
so it looks as
if somebody was
holding her.
Muslin covers
her blisters,
belladonna and
222 on her tongue
blur the badly
tuned tv that
will dissolve in
the sundial like
someone who wants
heave to be
like this

"THE MAD GIRL WANTS TO GET UP EARLY"

walk in the raspberries,
taste green light on
her skin, stillness
pulling the hair
from her neck, from
her shoulders and
rubbing where his
fingers had pressed
then poked and pulled
so her blood couldn't
snap back, keep being
so elastic. She's
shaking as jade
light loses
its newness and
jeweled grass
goes straw

"THE MAD GIRL WAKES UP, FORSYTHIA EXPLODING IN DARKNES"

darkness explodes
in her, shoves
its elbows against
her belly. The moon
washes the red from
her hair, eats nails
from her toes. A
dark branch like a
claw scrapes sleep
like pieces of the
ballet barre sticking
to her fingers when
she clutches what's
metal, words like
shrapnel, like some
one having a leg
sawed off on the
battle field with
no anesthesia
chewing a bullet

"THE MAD GIRL'S NOT SURE"

how to write her last
words in the note
book it's the last
page in, goes
back to the poem
four pages before and
reads "the mad girl
can't deal with
competition," as
"with carpenters" and
knows that couldn't
be true, having
wanted so many guitar
players, men who
could use their
hands to wood
sing, could use
fingers, not to tear
or rip or bruise
but build something
she could live in,
lie down in and
feel safe,
not that the floor
could slide a
way or the wood
rot where she steps

"THE MAD GIRL MEASURES HER WAIST"

each morning
wants to squeeze
into 19 inches
she remembers
Vera Ellen at 99
lbs was that small
and could split and
tap, her satin crotch
damp from spinning
she thinks if she
pares enough away
she can float
out of reach, a
Good Year balloon
everyone will get a
stiff neck tracking,
awed at what they
can't bring down

"THE MAD LOSES HER VOICE"

as if trains ran
over her larynx
splintering verbs and
grinding them into
the dust of the
lodestone in her
dream. It hurts
to do more than
write the words.
Her fingers ache but
she keeps on.
The phone's a gun.
She mouths an SOS
behind frost on
the stained glass
window letters
leaning up near
the glass are stuck
to, doesn't under
stand when the
blind man doesn't
answer

"THE MAD GIRL CAN'T DANCE"

as she'd like
back arched in a
perfect arabesque.
It's as if she bent
over backwards once
too often. She can't
turn out at angles
she might if
lovers lay on her
long enough, didn't
just touch down,
someone waltzing as
if whatever they
touched was a hot potato
that would scorch.
She can't stay up
as long as she'd
choose, even
wrapping toes in
gauze and novocaine,
she feels more than
she can use

"THE MAD GIRL DOESN'T WRITE THE 17 LETTERS A DAY SHE DID WHEN SHE FELT SO CRAZY"

sweating each time
the phone rang or
didn't. She'd move
toward it the way
she slithered
to the scale, stood
on the edge of it
holding the window
sill to not see what
she didn't want to,
using words for a
gun or rope she
hoped to corral
lips and hips in
with, floating on
the blue like an
Ophelia with water
wings where you
can't see. Or Lady
Lazarus good at
coming back to
terrify and charm, on
a tight rope over
white water using
what uses her