Cove Point
by Lyn Lifshin
April 2, 2008 — Published in Verse
Some afternoons, in a certain
mood, there’s a word, a name
I have to remember. Some
times its for no reason: the
twins I never could remember
till I thought of cameras in the
attic, Garret and Cameron.
Yesterday it was the ramshackle
casino, it’s name over the lake
where, for the first time, in
white shorts and tan legs, my
heart banged: would I be
asked to dance? And what of
“The Mocking Bird” with its
kiss her in the center if you
dare. You have to remember,
I was the plump girl with
glasses of course I didn’t wear
those nights so a lot blurred.
I was the girl who won science
contests and art awards. To have
boys who didn’t know I was
brainy, ask will I… was like
heroin. “Ramshackle Pavilion”
in a lost student’s poem sent me
to Google, to Lake Dunmore,
Branbury Beach: nothing. I knew
it burned down as if it never had
been there. Chimney Point? No.
With so many of my friends
going, the name of this dance hall
where I first felt pretty is a comfort
I’m starved for. I e-mail VT tourist
sites, history sites with little
hope until in a warm tub I think:
diary, the little red one with a
lock that never worked there
near the bed. I turn to August
and there it was with seven
exclamation points and what I’d
been hunting for in so many
ways: Cove Point.
Lyn Lifshin
Lyn Lifshin’s Another Woman Who Looks Like Me (Black Sparrow) has been selected for the 2007 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence. Another prize winning book was released last year: The Licorice Daughter: My Year With Ruffian (Texas Review Press). For more, visit her web site.
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