The Man Who Smells of Lemons
wears blood-brown and shit-red as he stands, still as a bleeding
tree, in a city parking lot: every day, he plants himself
in his usual spot: every day, tarmac cracks radiate
outward from his feet as he waits for
his crowd—
a buzzing crowd surrounds the man who smells of lemons: voices
run into each other like juice dispersing in water, but we
who are exiled from the crowd can hear enough to get the zest
lemon-man hardly moves, even when surrounded: sometimes
his fingers flutter like desiccated leaves: his eyes
drift: I have been close to him as bark, and have not been seen
one day, without preamble, the man who smells of lemons
wilts to his knees: the crowd recedes: who can hydrate this hybrid? how to water him? the
parking lot has hydrants, but no hose
we who are exiled know that, given a length of hose, the crowd
could aim an arc at lemon-man’s closed mouth, or dribble rivulets around his roots: but how
could liquid soak up through his knees
to nourish him? that, no one knows
my forearm rests on a third-floor window ledge: I am above man-tree as I sip aquavit: I do not move my eye
from my rifle sight as I / we watch, a child in a yellow dress walks forward: she prods
the man-who-never-grew-lemons with her bare foot: he topples
onto his side: he twists his head and looks at lemon-child: man-tree tries to spit: a string of ghost-
spittle sticks to his cheek
from where I sit, I can’t tell if felled man’s spittle is sour, or if it stings
yellow-dress runs flapping back into her crowd, as if winged
I make a fist: a flower, red as man’s shirt, blooms in the socket of one drifting eye—
ours, mine, his
we, who are exiled, know the crowd is pitiless.
The Man Who Smells of Lemons comes from Jude Marr’s debut poetry collection We Know Each Other By Our Wounds (Animal Heart Press). Click here to purchase directly from the publisher.
We Know Each Other By Our Wounds describes journeys that the central character makes, emotionally, chronologically, and geographically, in search of an identity in a dis-integrating world. One important element in those journeys is the search for real human connection.
“The Man Who Smells of Lemons” comes from a section titled “Every City I Have Known” in which the central character, a nonbinary figure who is never named, explores crumbling streets and buildings as an outsider; a ghost, almost; or a watcher who cannot connect. In this poem, the watcher is at first doubly disconnected, from both the crowd and the object of that crowd’s attention; by the poem’s end, the watcher has become implicated.
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