Poetry by Lyn Lifshin

GOING TO THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL

once a year, bundled in wool
pea coats and snow pants,
mufflers dotted with ice crystals
tightly around our faces so the
incense we were sure would be
too thick to breathe in wouldn't
make us sneeze. Under our
snow pants, soft corduroy jeans
and our thickest gloves, covered
mittens: we had heard about
rulers smashing bones and skin,
that patent leather shoes were
forbidden. Something about the
stained glass light on the pale
nuns with enormous crosses
and rosaries kept us huddled and
close, walking with only side-
long glances at the Jesus with
bleeding chest, as scary as The
Thing where Jessica, whose
father was a minister, shrieked
when the blob filled the screen.
We didn't know why the Catholic
girls couldn't come to our school
but would come later, in high
school. Or why everything
had a smell we never smelled
anywhere else, wondered how
we'd ever catch up in Latin when
we had to. The dark haired girls
with their dangling faces of
Mary they kissed before a ball
game and tests seemed as exotic
as what was hidden under their
white confirmation dresses,
flesh later we heard would writhe
and twist and do the wild thing
since it would be ok once
they confessed

 

TONGUE

she never told me not to let any
one inside, or that I, like women
in Tibet, who once stuck theirs
out as a greeting for others,
should learn to keep it inside,
sheltered. But the idea of
putting a man inside my
mouth, close to my tongue,

was more than she could
stomach. My mother, who let
me read Snows of Kilimanjaro
when my friend's mother would
not, wasn't a prude, but thought
that keeping as much from a man
would just make him want you.
Licking chocolate was one

thing, but to put something you
didn't know where it had been
in your mouth, that was too much.
We had tongue for dinner, that
huge blubbery shape much bigger
than any penis. In her last weeks
my mother craved tongue, not fat,
not too lean but thinly sliced. In our
house, we never held our tongues:
words were razors: slut, liar,
vicious, stupid, were hurled
down the hall like fists or straps.
My mother and I battled, it was
as if we had a body of tongues
stuck out at each other until any
place on our bodies was a mouth

so sore nothing could save us
but to stop each other's mouth
with a long kiss


For more of Lyn's poetry and purchase information, please visit: Lyn Lifshin

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