Lynne Savitt

THE VERY VERY LAST LAST LOVE POEM

spending months in rehab he’s
finally back in his apartment after
breaking hip & leg laying in pain all
night until someone found him in
morning unable to reach help he
told EMTs tell lynne i love her how
sweet i thought hearing him being
taken away on stretcher me on phone
hundreds of miles away but being ill
myself limited with how i could respond
still his first call to me was asking
for more than i can give paper cards
& telephone dreams he wants to be
remembered i sent glossy photos
from granddaughter’s wedding
he’ll be 75 next month milestone
i hit in june we’re old, my love, i tell
him & ailing i no longer will send fancy
lemon cakes or pink love notes or
porno dvds i still adore him like we’re
30 that’s the image i keep when we
were full of lust & love & promise
& prison was what kept us apart but
we made our beds & now we lie in them
alone or with others fading memories
ancient yellowed love letters swear
forever sleep on cool blue pillow
of no regrets i will whisper his name
when my ashes float on ocean’s kiss

LETTER TO ANNIE IN 2022 by LYNNE SAVITT

 

 

i miss you still more
than any dead lover
who went before or
after you died morning
buttercup light faded &
i try to recreate hopeful
dawn to love the breath
i’ve been gifted but there
are days like my 75^th birth
day so full of anxious grief
spent in pet ER among tiny
helpless animals adored by
owners who paid $300 for
mister nibbles their hamster
we dropped $1200 on our dog
who couldn’t catch her breath
& can’t keep food down today
she lays like a broken bird in
her soft beige nest & I struggle
to dig the joyful moment we
promised to find each day no
one to laugh with abt crooked
cocks or boring husbands plates
of gorgeous creole shrimp bottles
of pinot noir latest movies novels
poems views from bridges at dusk
our love of music &sam elliot how
we adored the tiny things & now
i stroke my radiated chest wanting
to share tales of our cancer of our
babies& their babies bright triumphs
sad failures how we loved emails
twice a day & now I never check
grandkids only text & everyone I love
is gone i miss you still & always will

The Future by LYNNE SAVITT

like all grandmothers we feel our grand
babies are most exquisite blossoms
of our children’s trees of light & love
pink with promise our hopes glisten
with their flowering victories

noelle lavender orchid of spirit &determination
who could ever match your special qualities?

on the west coast a certain boy grows with
strength & talent & intellect rising in the ocean
of his parents’ brilliant minds & loving hearts
generational trees of glorious history red
with roots of accomplishments

allen green plant of continual growth & success
who could ever match your special qualities?

cornell the meeting point
the start but not the beginning
journeys filling us with pride & hope
we feel because we know how you
young people will contribute to this world

your love your goals your love your goals
are a gift to you & to all of us who will
benefit from two extraordinary souls
&whatyou bring to each other & the future

Mutual Respect

i always showed for
kind hearted lovers
respected their idio
syncrasies body parts
secret fears but today
on the internet i found
some gossipy little bitch
i fucked in the eighties
had spilled some of my
personal info poet who
said he feared sex with
me because i’d write about
it i never did record liaison
it wasn’t worth a poem to find
images for the world’s tiniest
penis so thank you for reminding
me of that pinky in yr pants
i never uttered until i turned
seventy-one & read what you
had to report to your pals
one million orgasms ago

Lynne Savitt

Lynne Savitt

FOR MY 74TH BIRTHDAY & TWO OF MY HUSBANDS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

current husband

there are women so beautiful
staring at them makes one
dizzy as half dozen mimosas at
sunday morning seaside resort

i am not one of them

there are men so magnetic
they mesmerize one pulling
you into their lustful arms
like star studded wyoming skies

you are not one of them

a year ago when i got my cancer
diagnosis you said nothing not
one “sorry” or “i love you” or
“don’t worry” or “i’ll be there”

i hate myself when i see me through yr eyes

last ex husband

there are women who struggle
with scars & missing pink flesh
aging & aching with rallied grace
day after week after painful month

i am one of them

there are men who know how
to love stumps & bones bald
frail female shadows black
with disease & golden hope

you are one of them

i feel loved when i see me through yr eyes

irony current husband does caregiving
ex husband needs care giving but
he tells me happy birthday a week early
so he won’t forget & wishes me many
more times than not words ARE enough

three poems by LYNNE SAVITT

CANCER

when doctor told me i wasn’t surprised
like stars in wyoming skies summer
of 1976 my family twinkles with tumors
& mine waited me out giving me life
poetry children sex grandkids dogs
retirement cannot complain breast
i carried meat balloons headlights
from age twelve there is pain regiment
treatments to increase length of life i
ask for two years to see my oldest
granddaughter graduate medical
school is not so bad younger grand
kids surviving covid lessons at home
gymnastics swim team chances taken
for life i want long healthy peaceful
roads with joyful rides for all of them
will be my loving legacy from stolen
decades thoughtless debauchery no
regrets blessed to hear younger one
speak on carbon footprints see their
visions for better world what more
could i ask already my head stuffed
with passionate unforgettable photos
flash behind my eyelids glad i never
wasted time on philosophy of mortality
kiss me i tell my men in pink cougar
dreams i still have sunsets & my darling
fluffy dogs nestled by neck

____________

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS, BABY

you fell again singing one stanza
songs left on my voicemail sweet
but weak look for package of frosted
christmas cookies i sent yr way green
red sprinkle dotted trees & creamy
white angels long way from porno
dvds & sex toys we used to exchange
clipped conversation hard for you
to hold phone my burns not healed
yet & trying to kick pain pills i can’t
be anywhere but here hugging toilet
like cool detached lover is this the
way we end locked in our separate
apartments talking sports & grandkids
i laugh when you say i’d like to bite
yr ass & ask where are yr teeth oh,
baby, this our fall from grace but
not from love

____________

MORTALITY

she thought of the workshop
taken in her twenties when award
winning poet told her to tackle
important subjects death politics
of war the holocaust for over fifty
years she used sex as metaphor
juice to write never tired of its
physical mental muse wore it
like her trademark hats never
sorry for body parts sliding on
her page wetting all appetites
into her seventies still pursuing
lust now sweet little tarts having
devoured frosted cake of its last
crumb then doctor said it’s cancer
where did hunger flee to surgery
tattooed for radiation where does
sloppy lush liquid go when they
slice her & fry her & she cannot
touch loved ones in virus gone
crazy world dries up everything
inside her wish for one more
chocolate stranger’s kiss one
more wet pineapple poem

Two Poems by LYNNE SAVITT

LAST POEM FOR THE LAST MAN STANDING

it’s not a revelation after half a century
the love of my life cannot love i don’t
blame him after thirty-three years in prison
his instincts for survival miraculous two
strokes living with catheter & daily aides
he enjoys what he can forbidden cigarette
18 hours of tv everyday company of strangers
to wipe his ass prepare his food clean his home
every need seen to & paid for by same people
who paid for his incarceration & there was me
or another woman to utter praise &i love yous
to send cookies & cards & news of family not
really his photos of grandchildren he never saw
born or graduate but claimed to belong to some
thing i needed also like air to hear undying love
but when we are ill it’s hard to spare extra energy
&i called to tell him the well is dry &i’m thirsty
he said the right thing he always does he’s says
he’s there forever saved my life in the late 1970s
&i returned the favor twice when he had his strokes
but we’re old now & live apart & my husband brings
my pills & bottle of water every night my dogs sleep
curled around me & grandchildren text or call
i miss THE him i thought he was like he’ll miss the me
i am forever grateful for the lies of love that saved us

____________

 

On Receiving A Manuscript From An Old Acquaintance
I’ve known for 46 Years

 

sent to me & 39 others asking for
comments first i think how lucky
to have reached our age & have dozens
of people left on earth who’d read
yr poems i quietly digest them
want to say subject matter has been
grandly covered by donald hall
jim harrison tom mcgrath to name a
few of hundreds who have done it
better & before i think these mundane
musings are colorless & flat & lack
mystery insight image but i remember
you were a friend once when i truly
needed one & a lover when i had many
i think it was you on cocaine some
small upstairs bedroom near a cemetery
maybe a purple dress maybe i smoked
a joint these days I take on death & aging
in a physical manner having lost almost
everyone i’ve loved finding myself
a devotee of doctors & cat scans biopsies
thirty-eight may comment on this manuscript
i for one remain respectfully quiet

HALF A CENTURY OF LOVE, THE LAST LOVE POEM by LYNNE SAVITT

 

i still have words & warmth
physical reactions to memories
now when we speak it’s brief
terse sentences ending with
yr need to urinate or take a another
yellow pill it’s hard to swallow
this end of passion so strong
it burned decades through
families & partners & consequences
it wasn’t prison that separated us
or miles or husbands or wives
yr stroke diminished energy to love
me though you speak it every day
on the phone & now my arthritic
body can’t respond i send cards
candy socks love tepid as marriage
i look at the sad saggy cheeked husband
who shares my life here & my own face
time has been kind to me the juice
of our fluid desire kept me young
today my one true love i will wither
like the other old crones where i rent
in a complex on the island my identity
stays wet like the ever-eroding shores
& you locked near the woods attached
to tv like an iv & aides to help you
daily live out yr days dry as sand
i send in an envelope to remind you
of hours at the beach when we smelled
each other’s skin & floated on ocean
of longing to carry us to eternity
i’m not too tired to remember

THERE IS A BLACK & WHITE PHOTOGRAPH by LYNNE SAVITT

 

THERE IS A BLACK & WHITE PHOTOGRAPH

of two little girls about 8 & 5 years old
wearing matching striped bathing caps
between them stands a man in a dark suit
his eyes so ice blue you can tell even in a
colorless photo his hands on their tiny heads
like a magician pulling them out of a top hat

in late afternoon he draws the shades un
dresses himself one by one he tells the
children to come & nap their bare backs
spooning into him who pinches their arms
shoulders buttocks instructs them to put
their spidery legs between his thighs

decades later after their father’s funeral
sisters remember those times in the four
poster bed on top of the slick quilt with
grandpa never tell anyone & they didn’t
for over 50 years until that rainy night
finishing each others’ sentences identical

memories stunned at exactness of twin
detail flashbulb goes off their own father
never hugged or kissed or touched them
grandpa who always wore a suit & tie even
in hundred degree weather buttoned up
tight except those late summer afternoons

with his two little discreet rabbits
& their secret blue thighs

LOVE DOESN’T DIE by LYNNE SAVITT

 

i cannot remember not loving
you had other lives before me
after me did too but us always
histories shared our lost baby
yr decades in prison my kids
became yours & layers of love
kept us going we cemented
memories like bricks never lost
foundation yr wives my husbands
our lovers still there was us yearning
almost four years since yr stroke
& intimacy has crumbled like house
in hurricane i hear yr voice every
day before yesterday yr chair broke
& grumpy as a toddler with no sleep
you bitched abt it limoncello cake
i sent for yr 71st birthday sits in yr
refrigerator aide wasn’t there when
it arrived & you struggled to get it
in the past we could laugh abt this
can’t get any better me hundreds of
miles away i struggle with family
health limping through the days
calling you at night sometimes
waiting until i know you are asleep
i leave message ‘i love you’ i do yr
pain yr bad foot & left hand that won’t
work the slur in yr speech you are
going to teach a class & meet some
one i hope comfort i can’t give you
find in face arms of caring woman
husband, grandkids, dogs keep me
moving away & LIVING afraid to
say i’m happy i wish for you moments
of joy to savor like we did each other
for decades but now my darling i don’t
want to hear abt bathroom accidents
or endless tv shows or the yankees
list of medications plethora of side
effects me too my love didn’t die
it just got tired