A Poem by Lyn Lifshin

Some Afternoons When Nobody Was Fighting

 

my mother took out

walnuts and chocolate

chips. My sister and

I plunged our fingers

in flour and butter

smoother than clay.

Pale dough oozing

between our fingers

while the house filled

with blond bars rising

and kisses of fudge

Mother in her pink dress

with black ballerinas

circling its bottom

turned on the Victrola,

tucked her dress up into

pink nylon bloomer pants,

kicked her legs up in the

air and my sister and I

pranced thru the living

room, a bracelet around

her. She was our Pied

Piper and we were

the children of Hamlin,

circling her as close as the

dancers on her hem