PASSING ARLINGTON CENTER

Sunday, the metro, this
late summer. The tangle,
stations shut when a
man leaped from the
platform. Cool and dry
enough for my hair
not to curl like child’s
hand curls about a finger.
But September curls
back to that first time I
heard his voice. Upstate.
Enough years back that
his daughter, calling the
all night radio show:
she couldn’t find peanut
butter, is old enough to
have a daughter her age
then, visiting her father.
It was an afternoon, clear
like today when driving up
the Helderg mountains
to do a reading, when I
heard his voice. Not the
first man I fell for before
I met him but something
in his voice, what he was
saying, I knew I had
to have him

by Lyn Lifshin


*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm