LOCKED IN A FILE, LIKE A MOTHER SAVING BABY TEETH

maybe, mementos that
left a hole. Saved from
boxes and boxes, only
a few, a letter from one
or two, as strange to
another as whether the
moon has a smell. These
words with their own
taste. Letters from the
man I’d marry and
couldn’t stay with. The
California one, ghost of
another who said Albany
like Aeeelbaenie,
another looker but most
lost, the letter, the one
a friend of the one who
mattered too much
wrote: you know Lyn,
as I was miles away in
Virginia taking ballet
before grass became his
quilt at Arlington
cemetery. The one I
banged my knuckles to
blood on, couldn’t
imagine without in my
life, slammed into my
T bird to stalk night at
WGY, begging for a
slice of him. "I’ve never
done this before or since.
And then his "it's not
you Lyn, it’s me" and
so that letter, lost now too,
from his friend saying
it was me, in his last
months over and over,
the one, the only
　
by Lyn Lifshin


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