Lyn Lifshin

All Night the Night Has Been

lightening with moths

white behind the walnuts

If a woman couldn’t sleep

and came to this window

in this light her skin

would glow like bones

Clouds over the full moon

even with the wind

What would have been

nuts looks like limes

on the white stones,

it sounds like some

one tapping on a glass

coffin. It sounds

like someone tapping

from within the tree

July 23

she lets dread

take the form of

tulips, bulbs

planted before

white camouflages

sky. It’s too late

to remember

forgotten

camisole, lace.

Only papers

torn from confetti

on the 2 by 4

floor, the abstraction

of terror, other

cities people left

at night, herbs

never picked,

running through

ephemera, writing

the footnotes

before the text

Music Hall

If there was a lover I could

imagine, his thighs would

take me over the brass. If

I could remember when the

bow or strings could have

been a tongue on the crevice

where a knee and hip join.

If I could touch what I feel in

the cat’s fur or re-reading

Ruffian’s last hours. I

think of the Cadbury in my

pocket book, the winter once

he held me. In a drawer,

the sales slip: 1921, sold to

my grandfather before

he changed his name, good

quality. German, 360 dollars,

so my mother could star.

It was the reason she named

me Rosalyn Diane, a name

for the stage. I try to remember

the feel of the strings. “Talented.”
”Never screeched.” I watch

the first violinist, rhinestones

in her hair, black velvet

skirt near the one with short

stubby legs in what looks like

shorts she shouldn’t be

wearing. . The singer is nice,

making her cooing sounds. Years

after I throw glass as if to get

it out of me when my husband

ran off, he’s at the box office

in line near me a friend says

and like this night, I don’t

feel anything