13thWR

AFTERWARDS

She longed for the pale light,
watery, falling on colorless
walls spreading over midnight,
navy, deep rose swirls, delicately
at the edge like hidden crevices
of a body. She wants to plunge into
the teal of seas in an old map
where longitude is inaccurate,
false as words on the paper folded
and refolded 17 ways and beasts no
one has seen nuzzle water color
flesh and flying fish lick an
ankle. Somewhere beyond what you
can measure and calculate distance by.
No triple A map with prescriptions
for what to run her tongue against,
where her hair should flow out
on what pillow, no Michelin map with
blotches for hotels. She doesn't want
anymore skin except the feel of, a map
she could lose how what seemed there,
isn't, cities with their old names
she won't read about to enter or
leave. She's had enough engineers
and doctors, wants shapes mysterious
as Arabic, subtle faded tourmaline
and rose. If she could plunge into
warm island of guava, merge with
the woman wrapped in what other might
see as mountains but she knows, feels
is another's muscular thighs, drift
as if eating dinner alone in a lemon lit
restaurant. She could let what was wash
over her, warm water, a silk mauve dress
bringing her certain nights she will no
longer be a slave to.

OUTSIDE IN THE STILL WET GRASS

pines, a cove of green.
The only green. Inside
someone else who my
mother won't screech
at is powdering her
wrinkled skin, tugging
the diaper in a way
I'm not used to. No
baby and now this 70
lb dying one who
screams my hands are
knives, their coldness
is killing her. So after
holding her because
she hurt all night, I
walk into the bathroom
as I never could do
when her howls were
on the phone and I
knew she'd call unlisted
numbers, know, no
matter how hard this is,
I can hold on, as I
can't to her and, in the
end, she won't be
able to me

- Lyn Lifshin