6 Poems by
Lyn Lifshin
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MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
PHOTOGRAPHS
My mother and sister
near an old black seventies
Chevy. My sister in a
nest between my mother's
arms. You can just see
certain parts of my mother,
like a branch in a back drop.
I'm in several with
her, standing in back, her
arms around me, her prize
melon, a book just she
would write. I remember
the rabbi said enjoy
your wedding, after that
it will be your husband
and your child. I've
noticed this in several
other photos of mothers
with their girls, the
daughter held up close in
front like someone with
a desperate sign, words
pointing west or saying
Hartford. The daughter
almost blots the mother
out. It's as if there
was some huge dark hole
only a camera would pick
up where something that
had got away had been
(COLD COMFORT)
MY MOTHER'S ADDRESS BOOK
With rubber bands
flecked with powder,
slack as the face of
a child who won't
eat. Almost half
the names crossed
out with a line,
Buzzy, darkened over
with a pencil, as if there
was a rush like some
one throwing a dead
relative's shoes and
wool dresses toward
the Salvation Army
baskets, someone
catching a train,
breathlessly, the
graphite black as
shining freight
(COLD COMFORT)
MY MOTHER STRAIGHTENING POTS AND PANS
" I can't see why you
keep so many coffee pots
with cracked handles"
she frowns as if looking
at a police line up
where all the faces
were lovers who'd
slid thru my arms
"you've got a lot of
junk but nothing
to make something hearty
You need pots that
would last a life.
They don't make pots
or men as they used to"
(COLD COMFORT)
MY MOTHER WANTS LAMB CHOPS, STEAKS, LOBSTER,
ROAST BEEF
something to get
her teeth in,
forget the shakes
cancer patients
are supposed to
choose, forget
tapioca pudding
vanilla ice
she wants what is
full of blood
something to
chew to get the
red color out of,
something she can
attack fiercely.
My mother who never
was namby pamby
never held her
tongue never didn't
attack or answer
back, worry about
angering or hurting
anybody but said
what she felt
and wouldn't
walk any tight
rope, refuses the
pale and delicate
for what's blood,
what she can
chew even spit
out if she
needs to
(COLD COMFORT)
THE DAUGHTER I DON'T HAVE
jolts up in the
middle of the night
to curl closer than
skin, pink tongued
in a flannel dress
I wore once in some
story. I part her
hair, braid her
to me as if to
keep what I can't
close, like hair
wreathes under
glass in New
England. Or maybe
pull the hair into
a twist above the
nape of her neck,
kiss what's exposed
so wildly part of
her stays with me
(COLD COMFORT)
MY MOTHER AND THE BED
No, not that way she'd
say when I was 7, pulling
the bottom sheet smooth.
You've got to, saying
hospital corners
I wet the bed much later
than I should. Until
just writing this, I
hadn't thought of
the connection
My mother would never
sleep on sheets someone
else had. I never
saw any stains on hers
though her bedroom was
a maze of powder, hair
pins, black dresses.
She used to bring her
own sheets to my house,
carried toilet seat covers.
Lyn, did anybody sleep
in my, she always asked.
Her sheets, her hair
smelled of smoke but she
says the rooms here
smell funny
We drove at 3 AM
slowly into Boston and
stripped what looked like
two clean beds as the
sky got light. I
smoothed on the form
fitted flower bottom.
She redid it.
She thought of my life
as a bed only she
could make right
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