Lyn Lifshin
BUT INSTEAD HAS GONE INTO WOODS

A girl goes into the woods
and for what reason
disappears behind branches
and is never heard from again.
She could have gone shopping
or had lunch with her mother
but instead has gone into
woods, alone, without the lover,
and not for leaves or flowers.
It was a clear bright day
very much like today.
It was today. Now you might
imagine I’m that girl.
It seems there are reasons. But
first consider: I don’t live
very near those trees and my
head is already wild with branches

Lyn Lifshin has published over 130 books and chapbooks including three from Black Sparrow Press: Cold Comfort, Before It’s Light, and Another Woman Who Looks Like Me. NYQ Books published A Girl Goes into The Woods. Also just out: For the Roses, poems after Joni Mitchell, and Hitchcock Hotel from Danse Macabre, Secretariat: The Red Freak, The Miracle, Femme Eterna, and Moving Through Stained Glass: the Maple Poems. Forthcoming: Degas Little Dancer. Her poem “The Affair” appears in Issue No. 13 of Cleaver.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #10.