PoetryRepairShop 03.11:130

PoetryRepairShop 03.11:130

Lyn Lifshin's most recent prizewinning book,(Paterson poetry award) BEFORE IT'S LIGHT, was published winter 1999-2000 by Black Sparrow press, following their publication of COLD COMFORT in 1997. ANOTHER WOMAN WHO LOOKS LIKE ME will be published by Black Sparrow books published by David Godine in November 2003.

LYN LIFSHIN

Hats in the House


stored like mummies,
death masks or plaster
casts of famous rock
stars famous body parts.
They huddle on the top
rack of the closet, ghosts
or fossils. The stern navy
bluew staw with a white
band could only by my
grandmother's, pulled
down like a moat to keep
her good for nothing man
a brim's length (at least)
away. My mother chose
outrageous black felt
with floppy, flirty brims
or a flapper's straw with a
bent bow to giggle behind,
something theatrical even
tho she was only 5ft
tall. Then there's one
with a champagne ribbon
even Isadora Duncan
would have longed to own.
The hats flap their brims
like caged birds in India you
give a few cents to see set
free. I let all but two go
as if they'll guard my tiny
black pill box I wore for the
first man I thought I'd 
marry and the white veil,
skeletal nearly except for
blue flowers a child I can
make up just fluttered under
the paleness of, something
about to move away from
what first held it.

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PoetryRepairShop 03.11:130

Also, just published is Lyn Lifshin's A NEW FILM BY A WOMAN IN LOVE WITH THE DEAD, Street Press. She has published more than 100 books of poetry, including MARILYN MONROE , BLUE TATTOO, won awards for her non fiction and edited 4 anthologies of women's writing including TANGLED VINES, ARIADNE'S THREAD, and LIPS UNSEALED. Her poems have appeared in most literary and poetry magazines and she is the subject of an award winning documentary film, LYN LIFSHIN: NOT MADE OF GLASS, available from Women Make Movies.

LYN LIFSHIN
Novemberly

one minute, the sun was out, it was fall. Geraniums under a quilt last night, a blotch of red opening. On the front step what looked like lint, has small pink claws and feet. Next the sky was the color of lead Geraniums under a quilt last night like a child you've tucked in or a body wrapped in the earth under leaves. In the swirl of sudden snow, what was left of the headless fur blows west. Like a child you've tucked in whatever was living, a just born squirrel I suppose, hardly a living thing excepet for feet. In fifteen minutes, the light came back, cars stopped sliding Whatever was living. Or just born must have felt the wild snow was a warning. I thought of the lover wrapped in dark cloth and left in the leaves while, not knowing I took a ballet class. The geraniums are still under a built quilt this Tuesday. One minute the sun was out, it was fall
copyright LYN LIFSHIN
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