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Lyn Lifshin |
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THE MAD GIRL LONGS FOR NEW MEXICO before she bent over backwards like someone who dumped her like a too soft bed as edges of clouds turned moons lacy. Apache ghosts in her wrists, his eyes were turquoise, his tongue a prairie dog hunting all night in the kiva of her spread thighs under ground as pepper leaves arched toward their own light THE MAD GIRL DREAMS OF NEW MEXICO, WAKES UP SHAKING Joshua Tree Motel her thighs a pomegranate splitting, staining sheets under his hair as stars glued mesquite to the blue dust of her belly and the rattle snake of his words slithered over tequila lips he'd chewed, felt the sting of later THE MAD GIRL'S NOT SURE how to write her last words in the note book it's the last page in, goes back to the poem four pages before and reads "the mad girl can't deal with competition," as "with carpenters" and knows that couldn't be true, having wanted so many guitar players, men who could use their hands to wood sing, could use fingers, not to tear or rip or bruise but build something she could live in, lie down in and feel safe, not that the floor could slide a way or the wood rot where she steps THE MAD GIRL MEASURES HER WAIST each morning wants to squeeze into 19 inches she remembers Vera Ellen at 99 lbs was that small and could split and tap, her satin crotch damp from spinning she thinks if she pares enough away she can float out of reach, a Good Year balloon everyone will get a stiff neck tracking, awed at what they can't bring down THE MAD GIRL LOSES HER VOICE as if trains ran over her larynx splintering verbs and grinding them into the dust of the lodestone in her dream. It hurts to do more than write the words. Her fingers ache but she keeps on. The phone's a gun. She mouths an SOS behind frost on the stained glass window letters leaning up near the glass are stuck to, doesn't under stand when the blind man doesn't answer [Index] |
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Thunder Sandwich #26 - Summer/Fall 2005 |
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