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SITTING IN THE BROWN CHAIR WITH LET'S 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
Lyn Lifshin: Recent books from Lyn Lifshin: The Licorice Daughter: Myyear With Ruffian, Texas Review Press, Another Woman Who Looks Like Me from Black Sparrow at Godine., following Cold Comfort and Before It’s Light, Desireand 92 Rapple. She has over 120 books & edited 4 anthologies. Also out recently: Nutley Pond, Persephone, Barbaro: Beyond Brokenness, Lost In The Fog, Light At The End, Jesus Poems And Ballet Madonnas, Katrina, Lost Horses, Chiffon, And Ballroom. And Just Out: All The Poets Who Have Touched Me, Living And Dead. All True: Especially The Lies. Forthcoming books include Tsunami As History from Poetryrepairs.Com.
Her web site is Lyn
Email: Lyn Lifshin
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