Cure for Lunacy
List of Trees
Valley of Death
Last Rites
Spring-caught eel
head
and tail
Cut off
Skin and dry in moonlight
Stuff with thyme and lavender
Lay to rest in peat moss and marsh mint
For forty days of rain
It’s a trap
Swapping one dismal ritual for another
Now you’ll hear his voice too
Singing ancient hymns
Of paranoia and
Gag reflexes
Even the slippery slope has a dead end
Let’s make a list of
trees in the neighborhood, I say to
My lover and I can picture us with
Fingers on the field guide’s
glossy pictures,
looking at leaf shapes and
Latin names and seed pods and
laughing at how
Wrong we were to think only
eucalyptus trees had
peeling bark because so do the
Gum and cypress and hickory and birch
My lover wants to fall
headfirst
into the television instead
Zapped out of the present and into a world where
Progress is made by someone else
And trees are flat and thoughtlessly pretty
Let the black roots of the
unconscious take hold
This life of caregiving is
too much for him
sometimes
(all the time)
Let’s talk about trees
Look at these wonderful names
Rusty Blackhaw
twigs densely red-hairy
Sweetleaf
Fruits fleshy, reddish, single-seeded
Witch hazel
Naked buds and bundle scars
Care weights him down
Jacaranda with its
purple orgasm every spring is a
mess to clean up, he says
But the
forsythia bush in my parents’ backyard
Made a perfect cave to hide under, I say
Arching branches smothered in
yellow flowers like fireflies
Near the pussywillow with its long stalks
He smiles when I say pussy
I tell him about the velvety buds I rubbed
against my cheek
Some of the stars are dead, little girl
The light you see is an echo
Time illuminated, gone before you know it
Palace of nowhere, nothing
Someone flipped the switch a long, long time ago
We’re lost by the third generation
Your grandfather turned his back on the family farm
Just in time to miss its soil poisoned
By the dead flesh of soldiers
And scarred by artillery shells
Údolie smrti
Russian tanks, abandoned in crops of weeds
Tourist attractions now
He warned me to stay out of the mines
The rats are as big as cats
Eyes sparkle like anthracite
He said he was born on Christmas Day
But that’s what they all said then.
I traded coal dust for jet fuel
Washed its smell off every day with soap and water and beer
I told you I was good for nothing at the end
I meant my body, this flesh
Its betrayal so complete
Yet it still tethered me to this world
You were so sweet, my girl
You brought me stories and t-shirts
The things I didn’t know
I left to your mother
You can do anything.
It’s etched on the world.
Why can’t you see that?
I know what they
mean by the bitter end.
I write my name only
to have it erased.
What will these grand
children remember of me? Cranky
Old lady, diapers stacked in the
corner. Hugs that smell of rot.
My husband looks at me
only through photo frames.
I pray and plead for God to take me.
Five hundred
Sundays must count for something. Cups
and Communion and hymns I cannot
hear. I fix my eyes on things unseen.
The valley of the shadow of
death. An angel with its sword drawn.
Oh, for happier times when I
ruled this house and yard. Mother
of four boys, queen of the kitchen,
Alpha to the dogs. I have loved this
life and suffered this life with those
who loved me and those who
did not.
I look for green pastures and quiet
Waters but see only TV
And memories.
Lynn Lipinski graduated in spring 2018 from the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program at Mount St. Mary’s University in Los Angeles. Her work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, UCLA Magazine, Trojan Family Magazine, and several small literary presses. She grew up in Oklahoma, but decades in L.A. have worn away the accent. Find more of her writing at http://lynnlipinski.me. Connect with her on Twitter: @lynnlipinski
