Alex Lemon & A Line of Trees

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Oh.

Source
viaviavia
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Flourishing

Car doors, bricks, a drill press-
I've broken my hands thousands of times

because I'm afraid of what they can do.
Seizures of black-and-white photos,

sixteen millimeter film. Flash,
flash and framed in spider-leg light.

Smile falsely and the piano hammers
unbearably loud. Is it a stream of blood

or a forgotten plant's winged roots?
When I die brokenhearted, bandages

will muffle the paradise I choke
from your electric fence, but know

that I knocked, openmouthed in a sarabanding
rain. Your Christmas cactus will bloom

fluorescent - terrible beauties will appear
on the orphaned child's tongue.

-- Alex Lemon

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