Summer 2005

Summer 2005

LYN LIFSHIN VENICE DAPHNE RUN BACKWARDS the way that sandpiper runs as close to the water and then knows, pulls back, but not before he’s dug into sea grass. I’m walking out of branches, wood, Daphne run backwards, my own breakwater this time. Blue shells, sun cupped in the arm of some one who doesn’t own or want to own me. The leaves he pulls from my skin are stained with the verbs of someone who didn’t see what she could. Salt air chews them. We dream of Nantucket, wine in a grey wood someday. You know I never wanted a man just for myself but didn’t know that. Gulls. Old women unbutton black coats, feel the light, dreams moving in their throat like birds. They are willow roots hanging on under the sand, pushing deep. In this light, if they were to unloosen a few pins they would grow into their hair, birds blown in the sun toward cities rarely found on maps Lyn Lifshin’s 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-David Godine in 2005. (ORDER@GODINE) Also recently published is A NEW FILM ABOUT A WOMAN IN LOVE WITH THE DEAD, March 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 web site is www.lynlifshin.com

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