EARLY SUNDAY MORNING
by Lyn Lifshin
Edward Hopper
The thing about Sunday is
the light moving across
a two story red brick
building, shops on the
first floors, four dark
doorways and a barber
pole. The shops are closed.
They'll stay closed all
day. 1930. Sunday floating
in space, beating out
Saturday for quiet. It's
and old neighborhood that
has known better days. You
never ask what day it is.
Sunday feels like Sunday.
A Sunday kind of love,
never on Sunday. When Emily
Dickinson wrote "there's
a certain slant of light
that oppresses…" it must
have been Sunday, a day like
wide water without a sound
Lyn Lifshin lives in
Vienna, Virginia. Lifshins's most recent prizewinning book, (Paterson poetry
award) BEFORE IT'S LIGHT, published winter 1999-2000 by Black Sparrow Press,
following their publication of COLD COMFORT IN 1997, will be reprinted in
2001. Black Sparrow will continue to publish a series of her books including
ANOTHER WOMAN WHO LOOKS LIKE ME in 2002. She has published more than 100
books of poetry, including MARILYN MONROE, BLUE TATTOO, won awards for her
non fiction and edited 4 anthologies of women's writing including TANGLED
VINES, ARIADNE'S THREAD, and LIPS UNSEALED. Her poems have appeared in most
literary and poetry magazine and she is the subject of an award winning
documentary film, LYN LIFSHIN: NOT MADE OF GLASS, available from Women Make
Movies. Her poem, "No More Apologizing," has been called "among the most
impressive documents of the women's poetry movement." For interviews,
photographs, more bio material, reviews, interviews, prose, samples of work
and more, her web site is
www.lynlifshin.com
July - August - September
- 2002 , page
8.
Art by
Jane
Anderson
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