Lyn Lifshin
That Day, My Birthday
I think of my mother, small suitcase packed, the ride down steep Barre hills to the Catholic hospital. I’ll have my first child here she vowed when the nuns brought her mother back from near death, dead in the newspapers, almost dead under a cross where later the nun would say “You pray in our way and I’ll pray in mine." Did my mother think of her mother on that day? My father, unread- able probably in a dark derby. Did she think of the man she truly loved, eloping instead with my father; she’d heard the Lipmans made good husbands and fathers. Plus, he was Jewish, had a job. When I am older than she got to be, if I do, will I still long for her to rub my back, bring me a glass of water, promise if I can’t sleep to call her?
Lyn Lifshin has published over 125 books and chapbooks, given over 700 readings and edited four anthologies of women’s writing. Her collection Another Woman Who Looks Like Me was selected for the 2007 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence. Persephone was published by Red Hen Press in October 2008. For other books and information, see her Web site: lynlifshin.com
