SUDDENLY GONE, THE ENVELOPE OF SLIVERS OF WHAT I HELD ON TO LIKE JEWELS, A LOVED ONE’S ASHES

by Lyn Lifshin

no, not ashes, the letters were
the last thing I’d toss to wind.
Still, it’s as if they took off
on their own. They were
there, at my wrist, everything
else in the file is still but
what mattered, gone like the
wild plum petals, the sweetest,
the first. The only letter from
someone who couldn’t
stay. Gone like that image in
the first poem I ever wrote,
with it’s “snow flaked beauty
in a burning pal. Strong image
a famous poet said, bring
me more. Gone as he was before
I had written others. Gone
like the one who left
in the middle of the night,
later wrote how he went over
the feel of my skin, called my
body panther slim, wrote
of everything I wore remember
and even if not quite the
colors, remembered as his
words remembered. Gone like
one lover’s leg on the other
side of the road in Nam, his voice
on tape in a drawer. Hours
on line but no photographs,
as dead to me as he is, as dead
as he is. The envelope, a
life in a slim maybe 4 ounces
manila envelope, clasped
as I clasped him. Gone with
the letters from the man I
would marry and leave, gone
like one letter the one I
wouldn’t marry, wouldn’t leave.
Mementos, freeze frames.
The envelope was there and I
don’t know when it wasn’t, like
bad cells starting in a woman
building a vacation home
she wouldn’t get to


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