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Another Woman Who Looks Like Me
by Lyn Lifshin

co-published by Black Sparrow and Godine Press

Softcover, 221 pages
ISBN 1-57423-198-7
978-1-57423-198-4
2006, $18.95

Read Reviews

Selected Poems:

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

IN VENICE, THAT NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER

17 cats ran in and
out windows that
never closed as Hari
Krishna jingled up
from Muscle Beach.
The house I stayed in
quieted by 4 in the
afternoon when every
one left for work. I
curled in a stranger's
yellow terry cloth
robe as if to soak up
some sun color. I
hoped I'd be charmed
in tight jeans and fur
jacket, imagined them
sliced from my back,
butterfly wings, as
angels and truckers
howled foxy and pulled
up close enough to
touch my arms clutch-
ing a bottle of Chianti
or scotch I hoped
would help me flare
and glitter like some
blood sun the Pacific
gulps

E MAIL MESSAGE

"I love the idea of you
putting quilts on your
plants, a yard of quilts
like a front yard bed
and you tucking in your
plants for naps." The
just turned earth, your
just turned earth. You
won't need a quilt,
you never liked any
thing too near the foot
that was mangled. The
other, buried in Nam.
I tucked the basil in,
covered cilantro and
chives, the wind a
lullaby getting some
thing ready for sleep or
dying, really the same
holding and wrapping
as the dark grows

THOSE QUILTS INVITE

on e mail like a gulp of rum with
honey, what my mother gave me
to keep the flu away, burning
as I swallowed. I think of the
summer it was sweltering,
jasmine and rose on my skin
so heavy somebody walked
off the train and I stopped to
wash it off at a café. I was
sweating in boots, cursed the
sun, the stain from rose oil on
my sleeve. I couldn't believe
I'd agreed to traipse into town
with bags of poems to meet in a
stranger's bedroom. With no
desk or table, we spread poems
over the bed, read for hours.
Then he stopped to bring me coke
and slid his body between the
family poems and my thighs with
the bed tilting. I slid closer to
him, felt the room become his
mouth, his body become a hard
muscle like the verbs in his
poems, his hand under my denim.
It was too late to stay, my face
rose as the scent he must have
smelled all over his body. I
had to go, was drenched and
not from the heat, throbbing, as
I am re-reading, "those quilts invite"

HE SAID IT WAS LIKE A SAFARI INTO BLACKNESS

unsettling, yes a
little spooky. He
clutched the cold
metal bars tearing
thru iced leaves,
something loud
crashing thru
branches where
he couldn't see.
Something in
those night rides
like trailing a
woman, moving
in over packed
snow, chasing
a scent thru
tipped black
emerald pines
blinded by lust.
Sometimes the
bike is a part
of him, a muscle,
skin, hips mating
with what
he never
can tame

HE WANTS THE TASTE

of flesh, wants
the chase. He
doesn't kill with
a knife or gun
but takes what
he wants, moves
on. He's got
you framed,
captured in
a photograph,
your eyes
over his head,
mounted as if
he'd mounted
you. In his
dreams you
are wild and
breathless,
desperate to be
caught. He'll
leave once you're
pinned down, he
wants the danger,
the hunt, only that,
but that

HE WANTS THE TASTE OF FLESH, HE WANTS THE

chase. He doesn't
kill with a knife or
gun but takes
what he wants, moves
on. He's got you
framed, captured in
a photograph, your
eyes over his head,
mounted as if he'd
mounted you. In
dreams you are
wild and breathless,
desperate to be
caught. He'll
leave once you're
pinned down, he
wants the danger,
the hunt, only that,
but that

SUDDENLY BY THE FIRST OF APRIL, THE PALEST ROSE WRAPPED TIGHT

starts to bulge
overnight. Faint
chartreuse edges
out of color-
less branches,
the azaleas
exploding like
the first time
I saw what
nuzzled me on
the couch with
the lights off,
the first boy
in darkness,
suddenly glistening,
alive, pink, huge

BLACK SWEATER IN MAY

pulling the sun in close
that other May
the rose apple was
almost startling

I'd slept alone in
the west side of the
house, sloped
ceiling across the bed,
not wanting to hear
glass when a bottled
slammed thru it

The sun warmer
than hands, it slide
thru the last
mounds of snow as the
man who made me blush
just sitting near me

was suddenly there. I
hadn't seen him walking
toward where he'd
touch my shoulder,
tell me the name for
the tree I thought
was dogwood, pull

me toward his small
warm room that
night when it was
black and the grass
was black, wet, a
sweet smell I don't
remember smelling
since

THE APPLE ORCHARD MAN

I saw him four times
in my grandfather's Dept
Store's triple mirror,
my own cheeks pinker
than my pink pique
dress. Flourescent
lights, mountains of
house dresses still
hugging the week's heat,
he strutted down aisles
of Levis. No matter
later I heard he
was on drugs, had
three wives. When he
leaned a hip toward
me, his grin of other
dark charming men I'd
never see as danger,
I could have invited him
into the stuffy dressing
room as if that close
dark was a part of me
and I'd been waiting,
longed to lie under
his branches, have the
dark fruit glisten over
my body, saw myself
brushing long mahogany
hair in a window over
the orchard, everything in
me wild petals he could
open and coax to
bloom as wildly

THE FIRST TIME

not in a marriage bed but
in a motel I could walk to
from that raised ranch my
husband and I play house
in. Virgins for years after
the wedding until I taunted
a man with words, the only
way I knew, got him to
slither in broken shoes from
another coast. I didn't know
if he really was an ex-con.
He looked like a stud. He
couldn't believe he had me
first, rocked back on his
knees in the motel as cars
honked by. I didn't know if
he could kill me, what I'd
get from him. Or that I
would not feel different,
would not feel much. I
looked in the mirror, felt
his tongue along my mouth.
Already I was longing for
quiet afternoons alone
while this large man who
wouldn't fit anywhere
slogged a beer, grinned,
said he kept tasting me

FROM THE MATTRESS ON THE FLOOR UNDER THE FLAMING SKY PHOTOS

rain blurs moon
and stars, eyes dark
as licorice like water
in an old mine. A
Stranger reading
Lorca in Spanish on
the phone. Later my
hands smelled like
him, cinnamon
skin. The dog barked
thru damp sheets.
I got wet, fingers
on my skin. "you all
horned up," whispering.
If I'd thought
twice I wouldn't
have in my leather
skirt and high
heels, pink "what
are those,
barrettes?" He
asked pulling rose
clips from my hair.
"And your scent," he was
pressing the strangest
flowers, pulled
my hair, tilted
forsythia dripping like
my hair, I fell out
of what held me

DREAM OF SMOKE AND ORCHIDS. OR, AFTER 24 HOURS WITH THE STRANGER WHO IS STILL IN NAM IN HIS HEAD

my phone rings all
night. Friday is
an envelope that
went thru the
wash with the
only number I
needed on it
When I try to
talk, just
static. My
stories wilt
like an orchid
yanked out of
green ferns,
left in a locked
up vinyl front seat
sun bakes 17
hours. I didn't
give my last
name but sent
clues daily,
left rose and jasmine
scent for a
trail of crumbs
but the last digit
was phony. Now
the phone rings:
a fire alarm, the
wires smoking.
I put on gloves,
unlist my lips.
I refuse to care
aching to do
anything flip.
But don't
hang up

THE MAN WHO BROUGHT EMERALD MANDARIN ORANGES

because they
were the color
of his eyes
and he could feel my
legs turn
to sea water.
He was leaning too
close, knew I wanted
to. His eyes whole
oceans full of
crinkly fish.
He wore light green
clothes. Wheat
was what he cared
for, buying and
selling. He knew the
green would be
striking against a
field of wheat,
startling as when he
moved near me
on the couch. Green
eyes of water. Sea
that dazzles, pulls cars
off route 1A, his
hair black, blacker
than rocks
at Big Sur

RESCUED AGAIN

Above Paradise,
late, slamming
in again. Not at
all what I'd
expected. My
leather hip clutched
past pool tables,
brass and strings.
I could have been
on the late night
into early morning
bus, stumbling,
dazed that time not
by dark but by
light, the Pacific.
Ice plant glowing,
you there when
someone wasn't.
Suddenly I was in your
room of just one
bed and now enough
years later I could
have had a daughter,
small enough for
that 18 year old skirt
but don't, so
I wear it, stumble
from the bathroom
as if from that
bus and you're
reaching out, there,
in the black of
noise and night
and pin balls
Above Paradise
smiling,
holding me

"THE WHOLESALE ARTIFICIAL LIMBS BUSINESS," SHE SAYS THAT SOUNDS LIKE A POEM, A BOOK AND I THINK HOW IT WAS

the one story I could tell
the famous novelist in the
colony where the bush
that looked like roses
but wasn't was the color
of the sweater I wore
sitting under it, color
of the inside of a mouth
when he walked by and
told me the name of
the tree I used to think
was forsythia, asked
about a drink after 9.
His study past the black
dripping berry branches,
the glass of scotch, a
candle I clasped as if it
was close to freezing and
there was no place t go
but his sheets. I was too
in awe to talk, his name
a throbbing organ I'd
never resist but like a
tray of flowers or platter
of shrimp I'd decorated
with actual rubies, I
could have curtseyed to
his applause of my story
of our shared relative
who, yes, sold artificial
hips and limbs

BECAUSE OF THIS WE WERE LATE, EVERYTHING GOT MIXED UP. LATER I BROKE THE DOOR. OR, THE LEAVING

I thought it was
odd at first. Take
off your clothes you
said, unbuttoning yours,
putting the Polaroid
on a timer

we laughed about what
would turn up. One

caught us
moving. But the other,

my hand touching you
lightly, chilled

we didn't expect any
thing so haunting

strangely like Masaccio's
Adam and Eve

MOVING BY TOUCH

almost, as tho it
was the leaves, grey
all afternoon. Could
it have been the water
moving near us
pulled us together
so that that night
warm in each other's
hair, roots were
sprouting from a
moist dark. It was
so strange, even later
we didn't know
what to call that
need or love
like mushrooms,
overnight,
not expected

*

quietly
pressing frost
off to touch
the taste,
feel of
iced glass. The
apples in the
sun window
where the
paint is
pealing
shine
the way we
lean here
saying
nothing
but know

*

living with
you, well this
room's not

everywhere, I
know there are
other places.
Right now I don't want to go

*
let me I
know the chilly
places in you, I
never wanted to
marry you
away from those
wild caves

here there's
dogwood now,
I'm thinking how
I was the one
scared then

you carried me,
I know the snow
would sting
if you
let go

None of
that matters

TWO THURSDAYS

we should have thought,
I could have been
sketching you all
this time

you tell me my
breasts are glistening,
take off the lilac
shirt and I lay there
hardly noticing mosquitos,
the wool

If I say lie could I
lose this blue, could
I feel more like I
did then

thinking damp thoughts

the Chianti in an
old clay jar,
your cool shoulders

SOFT RED WINTER

wheat yes but it
could be the light thru
the walnuts soft red
winter you rise like
bread where we touch
under the brown quilt
our dark a cave we
hole up in hold on in all the
holes like a whole
in the dark
hold me soft
hold me red

RICH DARK

No slivering streetlight
through heavy curtains,
but the feel of your thigh
smooth through the sheet.
In the light your hair's
hot amber, now wild
seaweed, silky smelling,
like lemons and the pillow
smells of your skin. Only
willow sounds on the
screen till suddenly you
move away, stumbling to
where the light goes on
and the rich dark stops

BLUE SUNDAY

imagining that he slips
from her the way rings
do from a finger in
the cold. Leaves. October,
black spots on the mirror.
Separation blues in the
bed. Touching his shoulders
here on paper, he's like
all the flowers that I
draw, bright wild petals
that don't connect to
any stem

EVERYTHING I HAVE YOU DON'T HAVE

hunger, sleepiness, anxiety,
regret, bad dreams, terror.
Even when you were living
it was like talking to a corpse.
You don't need to shower
or eat. It's not that you needed
much before, a room with a
cot and cardboard night stand.
Radio people have to be
able to quickly move, go.
Having a lot is an albatross
especially when it comes to
women who might want to see
you more than twice. You
won't need your Zanex under
ground, can't tease about
Valium in the shape of a heart.
You won't have to walk point.
You won't have to walk, won't
need that fake leg. I think of you
watching the roots move closer,
circle your bones like a women's
legs, now in a room darker than
you kept yours so you could
sleep at noon after all night on
the air. You won't see this
long spring, the roses unfolding,
clenched tiny buds opening
petal by petal as I longer to

I NEVER WANTED YOU

to stay with me
longer. I was anxious
to be alone, go over
the frames like some
one picking up photo
graphs of a place they
are not sure they will
go back to. Sleeping
with you was the
best part, actually
being asleep, coiled
with your arms
around me as if even
afterward you wanted
to pull me near. Now
I'm too often nervous,
leave bits of my skin,
crumbs of myself
for you to trail me.
I wonder if, from this
distance, how I look
to you? Like a ghost,
that exotic light on a
moon you could navigate
by? Or, face to face,
would you still back
away as if you needed
distance to notice
my intensity.

NOW YOU'VE SPENT A WHOLE MONTH IN THE GROUND

past muscle memory.
In ballet some way
tendons and sinews
move are like a
computer whose
files won't erase.
Phantom pain, an
old story. But what
of the tissues that
connected to what
was gone, a let
exploding across a
mine field, there
and not there like
a lover who says it's
not you and dissolves.
With you, I was like
a siamese twin who
survives the other
but never heals, burns,
stays raw where the
hearts and lungs
connected

I THINK OF YOU BURIED

far enough down
so the wind couldn't
touch you even if
you were alive. You
don't have to have
your car inspected,
pay taxes, think of
getting or leaving a
job. You don't need
toothpaste, won't
need to blue shirts
to make your blue
eyes bluer, don't need
cigarettes, a phone
mate or any mate.
You won't see the
finger nail moon,
white boughs of lilac.
No more radio for
you, no Tasty Kakes
Lady calling in to
your talk show, no
Naughty Lady to
whispers she hears
frogs, feels horny.
You won't have
laundry to do won't
feel lonely on week
ends but not lonely
enough to do some
thing to change it

I READ IN A CLIP YOUR SON SAID YOU WOULD HAVE LIKED THE

peaceful snow that
fell the day you died,
the day you were
buried. I fly back to
the snow you drove
to pick me up in,
how it blanketed
Sunday as you did
tho chunks of
terror, ice shoves
that would bury
both our houses
were still under
the skin of white

WHITE TREES IN THE DISTANCE

a white wind of
petals, maybe snow.
The longest I've
been so close to
you on the sheet
of paper. Like your
death, these poems
about you, a wild
surprise. The last
page in the note
book, still I think
I'll need another
notebook before I
can let you go

KISS, BABY, THE NEW FILM

a much more rare obsession than mine, tho
in some ways, not that different. The woman
in love with what's dead, what's given up
on breathing, caring, could be me knocking
my knuckles raw on your metal door while
you gulp another beer, put your head down
on the table. With you, it often was like
singing to someone in a casket the lid was
already down on, still expecting something.
She buried animals in the woods, didn't mind
touching them. Though I made our nights into
something more, I could have been coiled
close to a corpse. No, that part is a lie. Your
body was still warm. It was everything inside
where your heart must have been that was
rigid, ice. The woman in the film went to work,
an embalming assistant. Isn't that what I'm
doing? Keeping you with words? Embracing
you on the sheet of this paper, a tentative
kiss on cold lips, the cuddling of cadavers?
In the film, the woman says loving the dead is
"like looking into the sun without going blind,
is like diving into a lake, sudden cold, then
silence." She says it was addictive. I know about
the cold and quiet afterward, how you were a
drug. If she was spellbound by the dead, who
would say I wasn't, trying to revive, resuscitate
someone not alive who couldn't feel or care
with only the shell of the body. Here, where no
body can see, I could be licking your dead body
driving thru a car wash. I could be whispering
to the man across the aisles, "bodies are addictive."
Our word for the loved and the dead are the same,
the beloved, and once you've had either while you
have them, you don't need any other living people
in your life

THE ORIGIN OF HOT AND COLD
ACCORDING TO THE DELAWARES

A man and a woman
started fighting.
They lived, it was
far north and cold
so she went into
the hotlands. But
he got lonely, rode
south and brought
the cold. Wherever
he went it was
winter. They did
this every year

WHEN THEY WHEELED YOU AWAY

and the elevator door
slammed shut, it was
like a mother handing
a child over in war to
strangers he might be
safe with. Suddenly
masked figures in
green owned you,
would have their
way with you like
someone hacking up
bodies. Those women,
too, must have not
been sure they would
see what they loved
again. I would have
been the one who
never had wanted
children, was bullied
and conned. Then
couldn't imagine the
daughter in another's
arms, gone

WHEN HE SAYS YOU NEVER WRITE ANY GOOD POEMS ABOUT ME

I think by "good" he means "sex." Poems
about stopping on back roads in he car with
a bigger front seat, not even waiting for
a road off a road but pulling velvet and denim
off like roast skin from a turkey. I don't tell
him, maybe I should but the poems dripping
love juice and pubic hair were written when
I wasn't getting any. A virgin after eight years,

my mind was never not on erotic movies in
my head where even the music was the in and
out of bodies. I had time in the raised ranch
to dream a man would emerge from the trees,
fantasize slow afternoons behind chiffon drapes
in the bed of white silk until it ripped. Years my
arms ached for more than the tiger cats and
the buff kitten. If a man wrote me from some

coast I opened on paper to him, came on to
strangers and convicts on the page. Those sheets
always felt safe enough to let them know their
words got me wet, even my hair was horny. I
Wrote about what wasn't there, what left a hole
I was terrified I'd drown in. "Writing like a hippie
but living like a nun," a magazine quoted me
and probably I said it. It was the way those in

the concentration camp talked of food, of seeing
light, the moon, were famished for the smell of
bread. Fantasized chicken, apples, beef, all the things
they'd never thought much about when they had
more than they could devour as, baby, I do now

Here is the title poem . . . and a reader's response

ANOTHER WOMAN WHO LOOKS LIKE ME

gets on Amtrak, leaves
her suitcase on the
platform. Nobody she
leaves behind has a clue.
She isn't a terrorist,
there's no Anthrax or
fertilizer in it, only
a few explosive
words to someone
dead. She could have
just made a fire,
curled near the etched
glass as if nothing
had happened
yet or revised the past.
But instead, she's coiled
what no one is left
to understand in the
lingerie pockets of a
shattered blue suitcase.
You might think
she's reckless
or lost, in a daze but
first imagine she
sees it as a child too
much for her that
she can't bear to keep
or know will grow
up with strangers
so before it can
belong to anybody
else, she wraps the
words in lambs wool
like someone
putting a new born
in thick wool,
leaving it in a
dumpster with a
diamond anklet to
let whoever takes it
know how much
it mattered

A reader's response:

"I got the chills when I read that, like I do when I hear Ella Fitzgerald sing."
                      Joe Larosa

Publisher's information:

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Copyright c. 2002 by Lyn Lifshin. All Rights Reserved.