Authors: Alex Lemon

Mosquito (7 page)

BOOK: Mosquito

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Below the Nearer Sky

The goldfish sprints, fantail
spread like fingers on fire.

It fast-forwards for daysâ
figure-eights a whirling fury

that spills. Spinning drunkenly,
everything is forgotten. It burns,

a lightning-struck barn.
Its silken flesh unfurls, ribs

shine like a whittled moon.
But skin knotted into ruin

can't stop it: the staccato jazz
your fingernail flicks doesn't help.

It will never quit, you think,
until the summer morning

it's found belly-up in dirty water,
still as a town ravaged by storm.

The fishbowl shimmers dark and golden
as if, in your absence, the heavens
crawled inâpacked star chunks
cellophane tight; waiting for you

to shake off your impossible dreams
and bow to that half-whole reflection.

Happy Fun Sex Movie

Night light rubbing & riffraff.
Singing waxed violence, sky sharp
as razors & fortuitous.

Nibble my nape. My snappiness.
I've been blue-foxed, led shackled
to solitary confinement in a field

planted with mimes. With darts.
They tickle my larynx.
Sickly with cracked lobes.

Is it selfish to want
the salted & tart?
Head table at the hello

party? Dip. Dab. Drip.
Cracked open, shell
a tumored morning. Gongs.

Leave the checkered neck.
Leave my selfishness.
Let the chokecherry paint,

let it sputter everyone righteous.
Babies sprout from the chili vine.
We are so beautiful in this eeldom.

Tumult

The kill, the tongue in my throat.

âMary Wang

After these days dense
with whoops & catcalls,

blizzards of oystered glass
& whippoorwills barking out

oddness, I walk in my sleep.
A murder of intimacies worrying

my throat tarnished. Shackled
to slamming doors, I've given myself

wholly to the city's ragtag
roughness. Dreams of exaltation

line power lines like shooting
decoys. Swabbed for electrocution.

They alternate intrusion.
They alternate blessings.

And each morning, the terrible
biography writes across the sky.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you thank you thank you to everyone at Macalester College and the creative writing program at the University of Minnesotaâflowers and Band-Aids to all of my students, colleagues, and peers. Wang Ping, Diane Glancy, Ray Gonzalez, Rick Barot, David Hernandez, Lisa Glatt, Adam Clay, Casey Golden, Suzanne Rivecca, Matt Henriksen, Mark Conway, and Nick Flynn, thank you for the guidance, doom, and help.

I am also grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts, the Minnesota State Arts Board, SASE/Jerome, Iowa Falls, and Dr. Roberto Heros, for supporting this life.

Forever: I am indebted to the beautiful people at Tin House. Thank you for believing in me, Brenda. Thank you for putting up with me, Meg.

Finally, I owe everything and more to my families (Lemon, McLoone, Dorlac, Garlock, Balizet, and Ariane & Catface) and friends. I love you all.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Tin House Books, 2601 NW Thurman St., Portland, OR 97210.

Published by Tin House Books, Portland, Oregon, and New York, New York Distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West, 1700 Fourth St., Berkeley, CA 94710,
www.pgw.com

eISBN : 978-0-982-50301-0

First U.S. Edition 2006

www.tinhouse.com

BOOK: Mosquito

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Read Book Download Book

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