Lyn Lifshin’s recent prizewinning book (Paterson Poetry Award) BEFORE IT’S LIGHT was published winter 1999-2000 by Black Sparrow press, following their publication of COLD COMFORT in 1997.  ANOTHER WOMAN WHO LOOKS LIKE ME will be published by Black Sparrow Lyn Lifshin's recent prizewinning book (Paterson Poetry Award) BEFORE IT'S LIGHT was David Godine in 2005. Also recently published is A NEW FILM ABOUT A WOMAN IN LOVE WITH THE DEAD, March Street Press. She has published more than 100 books of poetry, including MARILYN MONROE, BLUE TATTOO, won awards for her non fiction and edited 4 anthologies of women's writing including TANGLED VINES, ARIADNE'S THREAD and LIPS UNSEALED. Her poems have appeared in most literary and poetry magazines and she is the subject of an award winning documentary film, LYN LIFSHIN: NOT MADE OF GLASS, available from Women Make Movies. Her poem, No More Apologizing has been called among the most impressive documents of the women's poetry movement, by Alicia Ostriker. An update to her Gale Research Projects Autobiographical series, On The Outside, Lips, Blues, Blue Lace, was published Spring 2003. TEXAS REVIEW PRESS has just published her prize winning book of poems about the famous, short lived beautiful race horse, Ruffian: THE LICORICE DAUGHTER: MY YEAR WITH RUFFIAN. New chapbooks include WHEN A CAT DIES and ANOTHER WOMAN'S STORY, BARBIE POEMS, ANOTHER WOMAN’S STORY, SHE WAS LAST SEEN TREADING WATER and forthcoming books include MAD GIRL POEMS, and, just out, THE DAUGHTER I DON'T HAVE and TSUNAMI.  A new collection, Persephone, will be published by Red Hen Press. Arielle Press will publish POETS (MOSTLY) WHO HAVE TOUCHED ME,  LIVING AND DEAD and ALL TRUE, ESPECIALLY THE LIES summer of 2006. And Presa Press will publish IN MIRRORS. For interviews, photographs, more bio material, reviews, interviews, prose, samples of work and more, her web site is www.lynlifshin.com.

nobody can get enough of them.

In photographs, they were

beautiful. A camera

pans their bedroom, the

sleeping pet that never barked,

small pink sneakers in a corner

These about to be dead girls

are carried like Scarlett O’Hara

in arms of a pervert

Nobody hears the door opening. Or

if they do, it’s too dark for a face.

The girls are becoming famous.

They will smile on in photographs,

pure and dead, on the piano,

beauties time can’t touch

Suddenly, no one else is as beloved.

Their last words, cherished as Jesus’,

their pink pajamas relics

something other than fire

enters a hole in their bedroom,

a sick lover, a director whose casting

couch is death. These girls are

beautiful on TV news, tear

you up without uttering a sentence.

Amber light turns them holy.

They play their role to perfection.

They leave DNA in their tears

more lovely than gymnasts,

their skin is perfect, riveting

like the look in their eyes.

Nobody can believe it

could happen. The dead

girls will always have

secrets about them

the police won’t share.

If its snowing, footsteps

are lost under that veil,

white as a bride’s.

They are brides with

no good end. One leaves

her DNA in tears in the

murderer’s trailer,

her skin, the only SOS

They turn up on newscasts,

before they turn up

for good. Perfect

teeth, like any movie

beauties. Innocent, smiling.

If you could reach thru the

screen to save them. If they

were probably pinned under a brute

with garlic breath,

in a turn off a turn.  The

dead, the soon to be dead are

riveting. We watch like

the cat glued to the mourning

doves. The parents are holding up

their girls’ perfect teeth,

are crying These girls rarely

come home as they were, grow

more beautiful in memory

they don’t have to audition

to be stars. Once their

face is on a poster, no

one can help being riveted.

What she wore the last

night anyone saw her alive,

what was on her computer.

Where she went before

any tucked her in is a refrain

on every news report. Every

one looks at the men she knew

differently. They search and

pray while the murdering

bride groom takes her face

down to her last shallow

bed in gravel

There’s nothing else like them.

It’s breathless, grace while

they’re missing. Parents and

police clutch photographs

for the camera, the last pink

pajamas with feet in them.

Who has taken the girls, a

wild card. If she wasn’t

beautiful, she will be,

gazed at on cable, more

famous in the paper

than any model

for Vogue

 

no publicist could

get them as much.

They’re on the air,

on Santa’s lap,

in a costume with

a funny mask. The

girls are known

by their first names

like rock stars or

actresses. They

smile with a fake

nose at a birthday

party hugging a dog.

Their DNA stains

upholstery, is under

the last fingers that

tightened around them

we know them

by their first names,

famous as Marilyn

or Elvis or Jackie.

When they die young

they will always be

beauties, hugging a

pet. Each his her own

special smile you

can’t imagine anyone

disturbing. One wears

snuggly pink p.j’s

she is carried off in

the night in by the

monster of darkness.

These girls are on the

air, the bedrooms

they almost grew up

in are burned into us

they are always the

smiling ones, the ones

you can’t imagine

anything bad could

could happen to.

Their white teeth

gleam, curls jaunty

as their grin, often

on the verge of a

giggle. They are the

girls you’d choose

if they were in a super

market aisle, picked

to be hugged and

spoiled. Some are

kissing a dog, a doll,

a baby brother. You

want to kiss them,

want their photographs

to dissolve into flesh.

You want them to

walk back in thru their

parents door though

they rarely do

they hypnotize, one

shot  on TV and you’re

in their thrall. You

want to know more.

You want to join a

search party. If there

is someone who has

hog tied them and

done terrible things

you are ready to

pull the trigger. The

dead girls will always

be virginal, holy. Their

perfect skin and smile

will stay. No publicist

could do this for you.

Known for ages it

seems by their first

names, someone will

discover a hand sticking

up from a shallow

grave and even that

startling scene will

have its own beauty

undetected in even

a Hitchcock film

usually they leave

quietly in the night.

No dogs bark, no

cut glass shatters.

Or maybe, on a fall

day they walk home

thru dry leaves. Their

first names are full

of sun as their smiles.

For weeks they are as

famous as Marilyn or

Madonna or Jackie.

Like any horror story,

they make us feel

scared but safe. Tho

the dead girls got the

role, anyone might be

in their place, on the

news every night, stars

that burn out fast

 

there are never ambulances,

they’d be too late. Usually

there’s a pick up truck,

an old rusty trailer in the

background. The girls have

bangs cover enormous eyes.

Jessica, Samantha, Meagan,

no Berthas or Myrtles.

The bodies are found and

identified later. Sometimes a

mother’s boyfriend is the

murderer, or a family friend.

None of the girls aren’t

beauties and will

always be

alerts and posters

bloom like lilies

“I always knew she’d

come home,” some

one moans over

a coffee cup.”

”Thank you, all of you,

anyone who has put

hand on a flyer,  all

of you who didn’t know

her.” Everyone cries at the

grave. “Someone has taken

this away. I’m a simple

man,” her father says

“I had a simple life. The

children are all we have.”

they are special,

they are all that

matter for days.

Their faces as

familiar as Shirley

Temple. In face, they

resemble the child

star, could play the

same parts. Their

clothes are pink,

often, like one’s bed

room, or lavender.

They hold a doll, a

pink toy in a photo

graph on air waves

as quickly distributed

as Shirley Temple was

they are special,

they are all that

matter for days.

Their faces as

familiar as Shirley

Temple. In face, they

resemble the child

star, could play the

same parts. Their

clothes are pink,

often, like one’s bed

room, or lavender.

They hold a doll, a

pink toy in a photo

graph on air waves

as quickly distributed

as Shirley Temple was

but almost always with

the same ending

before they show up

their smile is plastered

on air waves, on posters,

on trees. They are

on flyers those relieved

it isn’t their daughter

will trample thru streets

and leaves to post,

almost guilty this time

death has passed them by.

The dead girls are special,

are beauties. Their smile

lit up the greyness they

walked thru, made the

ordinary glow. For the

moment, no one could want

more than what they

can’t have back

they are always in

demand on the news.

Often in a pink dress

in photographs of

pink rooms. Dead

girls are pure

to imagine hog

tied and slaughtered.

You don’t want to

imagine the plot

but do. Even

dead or about to be

dead, these girls are

beauties. They can’t

help being so special,

so adored and

riveting . The living,

alive girls hand out

flyers for days,

walk thru muddy fields

then send up balloons

at her grave

they are always in

demand on the news.

Often in a pink dress

in photographs of

pink rooms. Dead

girls are pure

to imagine hog

tied and slaughtered.

You don’t want to

imagine the plot

but do. Even

dead or about to be

dead, these girls are

beauties. They can’t

help being so special,

so adored, riveting