The Ice Maiden Mummy's 214th S.O.S.

By Lyn Lifshin

It was a risk
but everything
was after that
first death

terror was
suspended as
my lips were in
ice. I didn't

think I could
respond, or
care. I didn't
expect to open,

or feel anything
but the darkness.
I didn't expect
anything but

water. I remembered
blue iris, the
melon colored
lilies like some

one in the death
camps going over a
violin sonata. I
tried to imagine

my sister, old, in
our last home,
her eyes once like
mine, full of

earth after 500
yaers. If I could
choose light, the
raw wind under
the volcano
on my own, I
don't think I
would have