You want evidence of the street
fight? A gutter-grate bruise & concrete scabs—
here are nails on the tongue,
a mosaic of glass shards on my lips.
I am midnight banging against housefire.
A naked woman shaking
with the sweat of need.
An ocean of burning diamonds
beneath my roadkill,my hitchhiker
belly fills sweet. I am neon blind & kiss
too black. Dangle stars—
let me sleep hoarse-throated in the desert
under a blanket sewn from spiders.
Let me be delicate & invisible.
Kick my ribs, tug my hair.
Scream You’re Gonna Miss Me
When I’m Gone. Sing implosion
to this world where nothing is healed.
Slap me, I’ll be any kind of sinner.
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.