the Jacaranda were blooming out of season.
Or did I just imagine that.
It was before the terror of not
being able to dance,
before he wrote “Desperado is dead.”
Did I just imagine
how much I wanted him on the brown
velvet couch? Longing was like electricity in my fingers.
Later I’d print out the e mail,
all that foreplay
I wanted more than was convenient.
It felt safer on the page where I could
always lure men with my verbs.
II think he was really only an
urban legend but I thought of him
thru Germany and France
It felt safer leaving enough out
so any man could imagine what he
wanted. When he asked me
did I want to shower, I took my leather
jacket from his room as if it
was my body, He wouldn’t
have had to ask if I wanted with
his lips on my skin but he
hardly touched me. I imagined
more than the jacaranda when I
didn’t hear from him. 12 years later he
writes only my words could
save him. Not only Desperado is
dead but my aching for tortured men
so broken they can just torture
Now all I want is to dance under the
jacaranda, an Argentina tango
to gulp the blues
Poetry by Lyn Lifshin (www.lynlifshin.com)
Art by Juan Alonso-Rodriguez (http://juanalonso.info/)
Lyn Lifshin has written more than 130 books and edited 4 anthologies of women writers. Her poems have appeared in most poetry and literary magazines in the U.S.A, and her work has been included in virtually every major anthology of recent writing by women. She has given more than 700 readings across the U.S.A. and has appeared at Dartmouth and Skidmore colleges, Cornell University, the Shakespeare Library, Whitney Museum, and Huntington Library. Lyn Lifshin has also taught poetry and prose writing for many years at universities, colleges and high schools, and has been Poet in Residence at the University of Rochester, Antioch, and Colorado Mountain College. Winner of numerous awards including the Jack Kerouac Award for her book Kiss The Skin Off, Lyn is the subject of the documentary film Lyn Lifshin: Not Made of Glass.
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