Ben Lerner

Poem

Now that nothing has been done Before, you can speak of the stigma style and ovary

Fourth whorl of the flower

You can run your tongue

Along the lips of the sleeping No one has touched

Your hair, described the fall of it Now you can smoke

Indoors, around your daughters Windows open to spring

Nights that flare up in winter

Words like transparent

Shells attached to the elms maples and ash

I hear the people

Because tonight is recycling Picking through glass

As I write you, slow pour of metal Into the mold, my speech direct Because recycled

The prohibition against

Feeling broken like bread

Above the sill, an inferior mirage Above their heads, minute gaps Impulses pass through, blue sparks rise in the dark Fourth wall of the flower

Splits at maturity, releases Sentiment, follicle fruit of it, soft Space between bones of the skull Where dreams are knitting Delicate fallacies, now that bees The coral and ice, white

Noses of bats, it’s time

To write the first poem in English Each line the last, small rain turning glass

—Ben Lerner