Emmett Lewis
Some People Ride in Little Boats
I climbed into the crow’s nest and surveyed the historical situation.
Ballplayers skipped hand in hand, sipped fountain soda.
Lizards lingered on rotten logs,
the humidities soared to an effervescent decibel.
My eyelids felt
dismal. The forecast was sporadic
and the ophthalmologist diagnosed me with quatrain fever.
She found it in my salivary glands.
She prescribed jewelweed
ground up and mixed into porridge. She massaged my earlobes
until the skin began to blister, then I emerged from the cellar.
The street was cocaine
yellow, the clouds were coffee red. I pass by, myself
a passerby
in a purple hearse. I hear coxswains
wherever I pass, for instance, through the ambient desert
gray and mediocre. But the people here
are masters of hopscotch. They speak the language of tin cans
in the wind. Another moment, stay with me.
We were drinking in
the moonlight, in the gothic sense. The watermelon sky
grew dark and cranes crashed in the sand.
We were once radio dials.
We were once Polish doorknobs.
Now our tears mix with rain and we filter them through a sieve:
they call it Emotion.
At the Seashell Museum
The rain smells al dente. The ocean is in my cup of coffee. Words you’d like to forget are tattooed on your wrist. If you want to walk lightly, shift your weight to the balls of your feet. There’s a shiva to attend. The rabbi can’t unmute his Zoom. I hear scraping silverware on the roof of my mouth. Umbrellas cost more in the rain. If you get hit in the chest between heartbeats. If you get hit in the back when your eyelids are flipped. I thought you were dreaming, in the classical sense. The showerhead draws odes. The Thinker is taking a dump. It’s time to put away the razor blades and Ambien. This whiskey costs $200 an ounce. A spotted seagull pecks at its mother’s beak, then a bluefish spills out. The mainsail dreams of salt. The jib luffs. Lebron James gave me my first nosebleed. Once he gets that foot planted, going into that curl, it’s easy money. The opposite of sweet is neither salty nor sour, it’s December. Blue jays over Burger King. The Bluetooth won’t connect. Octopussy is one of the lesser Bond films. This is an adaptation of Piano Bass Drums. Down the hall, past the soda machine, you can develop bioluminescent fingertips. I sliced my thumb on a can of paneer. Don’t rest on your laurel forearm tattoo. Time is no longer measured in minutes, we’re 100 seconds to midnight. The clouds are calling for rain. Sitting by the river, mistaking birdcalls for text alerts, smell of cigarette on your toes. The fog is corduroy. The night is felt. do not stop / correctional facility. Hello, we’ve been trying to reach you regarding the extended warranty on your motor veh—
Under the Aquifer
Indigestion is an apt metaphor. Gesticulation is a dirty word. I wanted to be like cement at the moment of solidification. I wanted to swim through the moan of a saxophone. I am looking for sound, setting my camera on tuning forks and cello strings. I make films of Polaroids developing. I make love to women in extravagant hotel suites, in the gastronomic capitals of the world. I am the capital of Australia. I wear pinstripes to look thinner. I am thinking of trumpets. I am the tree swallow’s white underside. I am lounging on the other side of the museum glass, with the prehistoric men. That’s me: the era of pace and space, the tennis ball waiting to be served. I am haricots verts cooked in butter and wine and topped with sliced almonds. I am also the almonds. I am the moment between thunder and lightning. The sun winks when I look up. Time is waxing, the moon always lies. I am the moon. I control the tides and I am beholden to special interests. It might look like I am sleeping. I am feeling fluvial. I am a subterranean stream with high base flow and a gentle gradient. I am the headwaters and the mouth. My cheeks are the color of squash blossoms. You cannot step into me more than once. I am the same but you have changed. I am reading your pulse. I am still here.
Extenuating Apertures
Freshly killed rat over
-natural red dye. Wedding
cake topple: numbers 5
through 9. Glue stick mistaken for
lip balm, eating
afterbird,
met Elmer last night.
Concrete mixer red 40—mixing crosstown
gridlock.
Commercial works: di-sodium
dye on a sunny
day, 65 clapping meadows.
Kindness mistaken for
affection or affection crisp.
Sizzling
soft drink hard swallow; ham-faced
carbuncle
skyline reflected in water
in glass. Sucking stumps in mud
(cross section chestnut oak)
cauterizes archival dismay.
Heliotropic
tendencies: red-tailed hawk on teal fire
escapes surveillance
copter, cuts
through bridge cables—commercial
world in progress.
At Falling Waters in Saugerties, NY
falling awake
fallen
rocks ahead
dip
in the shoulder
low
shoulder
no shoulder to
mind the river
in the gap
in
the leaves
en-
circling
sunlight
reaches over
lime
green river growth
clouds reflected
a long a porous
amorphous edge
curving
shale shoreline
a triangle of reflection
black locust
cloud and sky
river growth
or water hyacinth
About the Author
Emmett Lewis is an MFA candidate in Poetry at Columbia University. His work is forthcoming or has recently appeared in Foothill Poetry Journal, petrichor, E·ratio and Hamilton Stone Review. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.