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What I need from this
Slap & tickle is a full
Suckle of lies. Glue
My lips together with
Blow flies. I am not
Ashamed at how hot
My cravings swing—
Cinder blocks crashed
Through car windows
& a joyous Wuuuu-Wuuuuu
Shouted at the dark
Puckering stars. I love
My calamity—say I am
The prettiest thing
You have ever seen
When the fire starts.
Copyright © 2017 Alex Lemon. Used with permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in Kenyon Review, November/December 2017
Liposuction for everyone who can recite
the Pledge of Allegiance! Lip gloss, Lee
press-On Nails arrive weekly in the mail.
The turkey is always fat free & the cottage
cheese is nothing but protein. Helicopters
drop leaflets, but in truth, no one understands
the food pyramid. & so I’m inconsolable—
I can’t get rid of these love handles. The woman
in the radio tells me to eat more hearts
of palm but I don’t know
what they look like. Bundles of skin-
tight tracksuits are thrown on each stop
The moon croons ghost
& curtains lift
Into the room magic & shine
The moon sings
Light of pinball machines
Over the skin
Of the world
The moon whispers pretty pretty
Pleads for you
An old man is playing fiddle in my head.
At least that’s what the doctor says,
pointing, as he holds my MRI to the light.
He must be eating the same hotdogs
my nephew microwaves. My nephew sees
Bob the Builder everywhere—smiling
in sauerkraut, sawing in the drifting sky.
Afternoons he names me Bob, knocks
my knee with a plastic hammer. I’m half-
naked, shivery with chicken skin,
napkin-gowned. But I don’t laugh
because I think the veined cobweb