X.
before me the weeping
bottlebrush
cradle the air
dark red with flowers
shadow-spidered limbs
oil-black bulbs
hang inside them
dangle & water-skim
from the boughs
all of the day around me
sucks into them & soon almost
_ _nothing remains
XLIII.
the black sky
over the park
churns itself bright
over two sodden dogs
that drag zigzag
the empty lawn chairs
they are leashed to
a speechless train
heaves the woods
beyond into a blur
I could die
to the raw joyed
clattering in that
song last night: scalloped
clouds unbellied
a terrible rain
now: apple cores & wilted
popcorn on the picnic table
across the playground
I pull through
the puddles
I will kiss
the dirt & make it
_ _bloom
Alex Lemon’s most recent book is The Wish Book (Milkweed Editions, 2014). He is the author of Happy: A Memoir (Scribner, 2010) and three other poetry collections: Mosquito, Hallelujah Blackout, and Fancy Beasts. An essay collection and a fifth poetry book are forthcoming. His writing has appeared in Esquire, American Poetry Review, AGNI, Ploughshares, Best American Poetry, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. Among his awards are a 2005 Fellowship in Poetry from the NEA and a 2006 Minnesota Arts Board Grant. He is an editor-at-large for Saturnalia Books, the poetry editor of descant, sits on the the editorial board of TCU press and The Southern Review. He lives in Ft. Worth, Texas, writes book reviews for The Dallas Morning News, and teaches at TCU and in Ashland University’s Low-Residency MFA program. (updated 6/2016)
Lemon’s “from Hallelujah Blackout” is reprinted in The Best American Poetry 2008.