Lyn Lifshin
mint leaves at yaddo
In frosty glasses of
tea. Here, iced
tea is what we
make waiting for
death with this
machine my mother
wanted. Not knowing
if sheąd still be
here for her birth-
day we still shopped
madly, bought her
this present for.
For twenty days my
mother shows only
luke warm interest
in tea, vomits even
water, but I unpack
the plastic, intent
on trying this
sleak device while
my mother, queen
of gadgets,
-- even a gun to
demolish flies --
maybe the strangest
thing she got me
can still see the
tall glasses that
seem summery on what
is the longest day.
Soon the light
will go she says,
the days get shorter.
I canąt bear, she
murmers another
winter in Stowe and
I think how different
this isolation is,
this iced tea, this
time that stretches
where little grows
as it did, green
as that mint except
my mother, smaller,
more distant, gaunt
