---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 96 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “I Pull the Strings” Down in the Dirt (v121) (the Jan./Feb. 2014 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the book the Beaten Path (a Down in the Dirt Jan. - June 2014 collection book)		get the 372 page Jan. - June 2014 Down in the Dirt magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

If I Could Have You One Day a Year

Lyn Lifshin

rare as those orchids that only
bloom some nights of the yucca
plant that can take one hundred
years. It would be enough to wait
in bland rooms waking up to mud
tracks on white tile if I knew
there’d be 24 in your arms, a
bolero as foreplay. it wouldn’t
matter, sharing other lovers or
wives, women who spend hours
close to your skin as their own
skin goes rose. This is now what
they get from their husbands.
If this, life, bloomed once a year,
haunting and short lived as the
first wild plum leaves there
would be something to hold my
breath for, to ache after, like an
inmate crossing the days off.
What was barred, what I
could have most haunating.
And what of the bolero, well
there are some things we should
not talk about but I’d keep
souvenirs, who doesn’t: a shot
on Facebook, a rose I kept for
another poem, scent of skin.
He dances close. I think of riders
getting on and off a merry go
round: you can only play so long.
The wild plum goes lace, goes
petals in the wind. I’d look down
and try to dram what I couldn’t
hold any longer, sequins falling
from the dress he held me in
as his arms did

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...