Lemons – Damon Hubbs

June 24, 2025

I want to fuck all the cheerleaders at the Tour de France
Throw working class life to the wind
Talk to sensitive young men in early Spring
Say something like, “Off they go, the knights on their quest.”
How would Rapunzel look with a bob or a hat from Fair Isle?
I want to eat lemon incest, join a commune, sun myself like an alligator
In a tacky lawn chair by the river.
I want to wear red shoes with black pants.
I want D.H. Lawrence to make a comeback
So I can shout I am The Boy in the Bush
When I fuck all the cheerleaders at the Tour de France.
No, no, D.H. Lawrence isn’t making a comeback;
He’s slapdash with language, as some critic put it
And far too obsessed with coal miners.

I want to know what the troll told the woodcutter
And why all my questions lead back to you.
I want to say, “Darling, you’re barely a Sunday painter”
And back when you turned men into rabbits
Your lawn chair by the river was tackier than mine.
Now all you talk about is lemons
And eels and women in love. How you part your lips
To Henri Rousseau. The deceptive allure of earthly beauty,
And Holland and its mania —golden, I know.
I smoke a fistful of Gitanes, feel the planets surge
Watch the alligators sun themselves again, and again.
We swap yellow shirts, take pictures
With a cardboard camera. Laze and drink and coyly chase
Our best of three possible lives.