Tag: Lynn Glicklich Cohen

Two Poems by Lynn Glicklich Cohen

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Another Sparrow

Another sparrow
hits glass, flies away
stunned to die
like the husband
of a woman I knew, a pillar
of his community. Left her
with five children
and gambling debts.

After the first few
I call a service
that installs peel and paste
film sheets in patterns
birds can see the way
we see guard rails
or blinking arrows—
row of white dots, dashes
a coded message
on every pane.

They tell me my brain
will adapt and I’ll stop seeing
them. I don’t have that kind
of time or faith
in what I’m told.
So I move the feeders further
from the house, hoping
for fewer dead birds,
feathers in flower beds.

I wonder if the woman
whose husband died
ever stops wondering
where he thought
he was going.

*

You Still Can

A peach pink line cuts through the sky at dusk,
a plane coming in for a sunset landing, so many
humans having been somewhere else. If I were not
already here, I’d want to be home.

I don’t travel anymore. I make excuses:
the cost, my dog, flying, inconvenience, discomfort.
It’s gotten embarrassing, like the clatter
of empty bottles, their skinny necks, residual fumes.

I awake with a spider-legged dread.
I belong in a story they won’t let me forget.
Another gathering of Jews bullet-sprayed.
Ancestral warnings. Shocked not surprised.

Hiding is one way to survive but no way
to live. I stay home, sweep crumbs, feed
the dog, pay bills. I fold sheets, make toast.
A plane? You mean you can go anywhere?

*

Lynn Glicklich Cohen is a poet from Milwaukee, WI. A once-upon-a-time social worker, a perennial cellist and semi-retired Rolfer, her poems have been published in Brushfire Literature and Arts Journal, Birmingham Arts Journal, Cantos, El Portal, Evening Street Review, Front Range Review, Grand Journal, Oberon, ONE ART, Peregrine, The Midwest Quarterly, The Phoenix, The Red Wheelbarrow, St. Katherine’s Review, Thin Air Magazine, Trampoline, Whistling Shade, and others. www.lynnglicklichcohenpoet.com

When People Say Classical Music Helps Them Relax by Lynn Glicklich Cohen

~ ONE ART ~ 3 Comments

When People Say Classical Music Helps Them Relax

I think of the hard metal
folding chairs on uneven grass,
pages blow closed and open
during Pachelbel, the bride
finally reaches the altar,
violinist cues the final repeat.

Beethoven Symphony #8 in Jerusalem,
heartbroken by the trombonist who used to wink
at me above the head of the bassoonist
but won’t look at me now.

Bach Cello Suite in G Major, on stage,
fingers cold, palms sweaty, my vivace pulse
in rhythmic dissonance with the Prelude’s
languid tempo. All those people I invited—
why? why? why?—watching.

Mahler 1st, Ozawa conducting, Tanglewood
pines, smell of charred meat from the commissary
kitchen, my stand partner’s condescension,
his sneer and bow tip slap on the score
after my late page turn.

Bartok duos busked in Boston subway
stations, dragging stool, stand, instrument
down escalators, screech of wheels competing
with Bela’s surprising harmonies, our loot
loose change and a couple bills, barely enough
to share a pizza.

Strauss waltzes for a formal Spring gala,
free drinks for the musicians, laughing
too hard to pluck the pizzicato
for Blue Danube, eyes rolling in step
with the schmaltzy music, sweat and merlot
staining my gown.

The hair on my neck, the gooseflesh
on my arms, the heat in my cheeks and lump
in my throat. To stop and start, speed up and slow
down, get loud and soft, change bows and breathe
together. It’s incredible when you think about it—
to have been the girl who did that.

*

Lynn Glicklich Cohen is a poet from Milwaukee, WI. A once-upon-a-time social worker, a perennial cellist and semi-retired Rolfer, her poems have been published in Brushfire Literature and Arts Journal, Birmingham Arts Journal, Cantos, El Portal, Evening Street Review, Front Range Review, Grand Journal, Oberon, ONE ART, Peregrine, The Midwest Quarterly, The Phoenix, The Red Wheelbarrow, St. Katherine’s Review, Thin Air Magazine, Trampoline, Whistling Shade, and others. www.lynnglicklichcohenpoet.com

Wedding Music by Lynn Glicklich Cohen

~ ONE ART ~ 9 Comments

Wedding Music

How utterly ridiculous that she survived
specifically to see her youngest granddaughter
get married after ten agonizing months
post-brain surgery and several rounds
of chemo for a tumor that was
the kind that grows back to finally kill you
only to be prevented from leaving
the care facility that’s become home—
having given up her condo when
she could not remember “apple penny umbrella”
or where she’d left the car—held hostage
by a broken elevator for god’s sake, and since
everyone here has known forever
about the importance of this wedding
because that’s the kind of place it is,
sharing grandchildren’s nachas and mitzvahs—
between staff’s urgent calls to Mitsubishi for
service and caregiver texts back and forth
to alert the bride, everyone wants
to kill someone, even the violinist, who has
another gig and whose fingers are getting stiff
in the giant ballroom kept cold until the mob
of attendees are seated for dinner
and dancing at which point it gets hot,
not advisable in combination with the open bar
and slinky cocktail garb, but even blowing
on them isn’t helping until the cellist
offers his pack of Little Hotties hand warmers,
which she takes gratefully, and just in time,
as the grandmother, looking abashed, dazed,
and yet still somehow regal in a blue dress,
is escorted adorably by two tuxedoed little boys,
and the violinist has the sudden urge to stand,
salute the grandmother, who barely made it
and her standing prompts an ovation, clapping
and mazel tovs! and only after everyone has sat
back down does it occur to the violinist
that she’s taken something
away from the bride, but honestly,
she doesn’t care—she has her whole life
ahead of her—and she raises her bow, cues
the others and they begin to play.

*

Lynn Glicklich Cohen lives in Milwaukee, WI, walking distance to a Great Lake and an aspiring river. She spends at least some of every day reading and/or writing poetry. She is profoundly grateful to ONE ART and the numerous other literary journals that have published her work.

What Do I Do Now? by Lynn Glicklich Cohen

~ ONE ART ~ 5 Comments
What Do I Do Now?
I am certain the ribcage pain I woke up with
is stage-four lung cancer; it would explain
the chronic cough doctors dismissed
as allergies or reflux for which they prescribed
over-the-counter pills that do nothing
but make me tired.
I plan my service: the poems—Glück, Pastan, Simic;
the music—Bach, Baez, bluegrass;
the food—bagels, lox, the works.
My sister will make a photo montage
of me at various ages as she did for our parents,
and some people will see me young for the first time.
Lovely things will be said about me. My brother
will crack jokes; the room will erupt in laughter.
I want my ashes mixed with those of my dogs—
the still-living one, too, once she passes—
and spread a mile out on Lake Michigan, along whose shores
she and I have known so much joy. On that beach. In that water.
Meanwhile, my sister, whose love I trust utterly, will adopt her
and take my place.
I’ll bequeath the inheritance my mother left me
to my friends whose money troubles have forced them
to work too hard, forgo basic repairs, deny themselves travel
and good health care. I imagine them with new HVAC,
in business class, getting mammograms…endowed by my will,
a power greater than any I’ve known in life.
Then, as hours pass, the pain improves, less like a dissonant chord
than an off-key melody. Mostly likely just a pulled muscle.
Why I don’t play Bach, eat bagels, read Glück,
I cannot say.
*
Lynn Glicklich Cohen is a poet from Milwaukee, WI. Her poems have appeared in Oberon, Red Wheelbarrow, Midwest Review, Evening Street Review, and numerous other journals. She was nominated for Best of the Net in 2024.

Division by Lynn Glicklich Cohen

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Division

My father’s ashes bloom
as I pour them into a jar
once used for pickles,
the smell of spice and brine
embedded in the lid. He
liked his food “sharp,”
with a kick—black pepper
on oatmeal, hot sauce
on everything else, years
of smoking having blunted
his tastebuds. Now his dust
clings to my hands, settles
like spilled flour on my granite
countertops. How did I end up
in possession of his remains?

His stepdaughter, a woman
I met only twice
in thirty years, the eldest
of Wife Number Two,
(the one my father left
my mother for), wrote
to request a portion
so she and her kids—
who call him “Grandpa”—
could make a special trip
to the lake he loved, scatter
him where he’d taken them
sailing and for ice cream,
full family time every summer
of their youth.

I knew a different man
than the one they remember.
He worked late, arrived home
angry, spoke rarely. Family
vacations were long hot days
in a crammed station wagon,
siblings bickering, our private
miseries disguised by covert
slaps and jabs. Hotel pools
never cool enough, ice the only
thing we got for free.

Yet every time I smell
pipe smoke I reel, spun
by a need to pinpoint
the source of this longing
I was foolish enough
to think I’d outgrown.

Now I tighten the jar lid,
rinse my hands,
sponge the countertop,
the messy dust, the blowback,
the unburied residue of love.

*

Lynn Glicklich Cohen lives in Milwaukee. Her poetry has been published in Brushfire Literature and Arts Journal, Birmingham Arts Journal, Cantos, El Portal, Evening Street Review, Front Range Review, Grand Journal, The Midwest Quarterly, The Phoenix, The Red Wheelbarrow, St. Katherine’s Review, Thin Air Magazine, Trampoline, Whistling Shade, and others.