THE LOST ENVELOPES OF MEMENTOS

by Lyn Lifshin

I couldn’t sleep, haunted by
ghosts of ghosts, even valium
couldn’t help numb the hole
where all I had left of what
I couldn’t keep raged. Black
stone eyes, but especially the
one whose blue eyes over
the radio hypnotized. Don’t
say you don’t believe that.
At least I have the tapes, his
voice. But what mattered
the most, not his obits,
not the news clips I kept,
“radio talk jock dead at…" was
it 50? by chance buying
The Gazette. “I think I’m
falling in love,” and then
days later, after no call, “It’s
not you, it’s me.” How I bloodied
my hand banging on his door.
Then undone in his arms, in
love with his voice, his stories,
on midnight air before I
met him. “Taking one leg was ok,”
he said but when they went after
the other, that was too much.
Now he grinned, “with one leg,
it’s easier to get closer than
close.” In other towns, I tried to
pick up the signal. The letter
I most miss, one from his friend
later saying “you know he always
told me, it was you, only you,
only you.”


*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm