Two Poems
The Mad Girl Feels the Dark Spread Under the Surface
the way her uncle said
with you, a pin point on
the tooth’s surface leads
to a whole falling apart
deeper in. She sees the
full glass evaporating, the
woman in a dream who
is dissolving under the
radium of her cloisonne
pin. Somewhere in her
wrists miners are buried
in what they’ve made
paths thru into what they
have dug into becoming
graves. When she goes to
replace her roof, even
the rafters, even the walls
have been eaten into decay.
Furnaces in her tongue
break as the temperature
falls. At night, unable
to sleep she jots down
what’s coming at her,
what devours, kills like
someone who puts her
head to rail tracks to
heat what’s rushing
closer
The Mad Girl Wades Thru January
too exhausted
to swim another foot
in six feet of water.
Her feet tangle in
sea weed, a lasso
pulling on her. She
turns into a wounded
deer dogs track
and surround. Aces
are wild and she
gets the jacks,
the sevens, falls
into herself in
snow, her dreams
down hill skis.
Her blood freezes
tighter than
barnacles to ice
slopes that only a
thick oak stops
—Lyn Lifshin, Vienna, VA
