by Amy Lemmon

“To write these days is to avoid telling people how angry I am.”
—Daniel Nester


Behold the Rottweiler in its cage, behold homemade cornhusk
ornaments, behold the photo of a Jaymar miniature piano,

behold the galaxy of knees at noon, facing the maestro’s
fragrance. Behold, behold, I stand at the door and knock-knock-knock

Answer the call, be real now, be here & calculate
cost vs. bennies, don’t be that person who waits

until the last chorus to join in. Makes you look careless.
Care less. Rejection is a state, like catalepsy, to move through.

Behold the scroll, the wretched bankroll, the double tongue
summoning his minions to court, calculate the chorus

and ford the spring, a small thing, mysterious as amaryllis—
a little water, a little sun. Behold my process of (pre)tending.

Sweetpea, the voice will always call, a murmur or hum,
a spring burbling or a dammed-up flood. Locally sourced,

unforced, double-spaced & tortured into shape. Copyright
the Year of Our Lord blank blankety-blank, Amen.

Behold the ample galaxy, a naked miracle through the blinds.
Clean your damn windows and the bulb will bloom.

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Amy Lemmon is the author of five poetry collections, including Saint Nobody (Red Hen Press) and The Miracles (C&R Press). Her poems and essays have appeared in The Best American Poetry, Rolling Stone, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, Verse, Court Green, The Journal, Marginalia, and many other magazines and anthologies. Amy is Professor of English at the Fashion Institute of Technology-SUNY, where she teaches writing, literature, and creativity studies. She lives in Astoria, Queens.