Alex Lemon's first collection of poems is Mosquito (Tin House Books, 2006). At Last Unfolding Congo, a chapbook, is forthcoming from Burning Chair Books. He also has a memoir forthcoming from Scribner. His translations (with Wang Ping) of a number of contemporary Chinese poets are forthcoming in Tin House, Artful Dodge, and New American Writing. He is the co-editor of LUNA: A Journal of Poetry and Translation and is a frequent contributor to The Bloomsbury Review. Currently, he teaches at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Other Good
Anesthesia dumb, scalpel-paste
Rawing my tongue, I found
Myself starfished in sky
Spinning days. I stared into my eyelids'
Bustling magic, the black
Of my hands. Oh, how darkness
Swaggered, dealt flourescent-blurs
& the choke of the sea. This is my everything—
Bright shuddered my cheeks,
Shadows whistled through their teeth.
Hallways thrummed & snorted,
The surgeons in my brain
Pissed with no hands.
Each day nurses wore their best
Tinfoil skirts, buried
Their caresses in my side
While pillows whispered
In spite of your scars you are tickled
to death of life
I couldn't understand this
Always being held. Lung-machines
Sang louder. Wave song & useless.
Midnights & swearing. Blue.
Who prayed for me—my thanks
But I can't keep anything down.
Who knew it had nothing to do
With the wind by how light
Flickered with falling knives?
Spinning days. I stared into my eyelids'
Bustling magic, the black
Of my hands. Oh, how darkness
Swaggered, dealt flourescent-blurs
& the choke of the sea. This is my everything—
Bright shuddered my cheeks,
Shadows whistled through their teeth.
Hallways thrummed & snorted,
The surgeons in my brain
Pissed with no hands.
Each day nurses wore their best
Tinfoil skirts, buried
Their caresses in my side
While pillows whispered
In spite of your scars you are tickled
to death of life
I couldn't understand this
Always being held. Lung-machines
Sang louder. Wave song & useless.
Midnights & swearing. Blue.
Who prayed for me—my thanks
But I can't keep anything down.
Who knew it had nothing to do
With the wind by how light
Flickered with falling knives?
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