by Lyn Lifshin
it wasn’t the language, she spoke perfect
English but the way of life, being secret,
too careful, watching what she said so
wildly. She didn’t say what mattered, he
never knew. It was the culture he said,
the secrets, the knock on a metal door in
the night. It didn’t work, he hadn’t tried
as he could have but the communication,
it was missing. I miss him, but of course
I don’t say it. Miss, something we didn’t
have, missed like any connection, 2 people
passing each other in a town, hot to see
each other but not having a clue. Could it
be because my father came from Russia?
My father who hardly said a word, moved
thru the house as if a ghost, a stranger in
darkness. So many secrets. What I wanted
to say, I didn’t. I wasn’t direct but taking
my leather coat must have been an SOS,
an alert. I wanted but I didn’t say it. My
given name, Russian, the music I love in a
minor key. Sad Russian music, sadder than
the blues. Something, the way he pushed
his mother’s fingers from his skin after
the cycle accident, drugged on the floor
hours before she leaped Niagara Falls
saying nothing must be, like the phone calls,
all hang ups, what I don’t know, secret,
vague, stripped of all caller ID
*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm
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