"Lemon Egg of Time" by Leslie Lindsay
Content warning: this poem addresses child sexual abuse as well as predatory and abusive behavior of content creators.
Anthony Frame | P̶o̶e̶m̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶W̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶D̶e̶a̶t̶h̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶S̶a̶n̶d̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶V̶i̶s̶i̶t̶s̶ ̶M̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶D̶r̶e̶a̶m̶ All My Heroes Turned Out to Be Creeps
Crack me open and find nerves and sinew and synapses,
find ferns and fireflies and a creek filled with snakes and turtles.
Find an endless parade of four-color heroes posed in silhouette
before a rising sun. Find me on the floor, against the couch,
as I wait for the vampire show to start. Find my porous shell
desperate to be filled. Crack me open and find water
and air, carbon and nitrogen, elastic neurons always firing.
Find the ghost-girl wearing a top hat, the cute slayer
with a necklace instead of a scythe, letting me know
I didn't have to be afraid. Find the fingerprints of the man
who touched my body unbidden, the taste of his breath
that I can never seem to shake off. Is it desire or delirium
that opens us like orchids? I walked into the world looking
for faith and only found destruction, a stake to the heart,
a holy spider with too much wisdom. What does it mean
when monsters make monsters and I make them my own?
crack me open and find organs and bones, hairline fractures
and electrical signals jumping along my body’s pathways.
Find the picture of my father fishing with his father,
my brother behind them holding me in the boat,
a flicker of sunlight building at the edge of the lake.
Someone tell all the men I never knew but adored
that they’ve stolen the pennies I’d kept to cover my eyes
and now I no longer know if I can tell my own story.
Crack me open and find I am empty. Let me try again:
see the tenderness of survival. See the unbroken boy
running in his yard, surrounded by fireflies. See the sled
and the makeshift hill, see him covered in snow. See him
fierce, unwavering, finding a forest in his mind and building
a treehouse out of nothing more than moments and images
and the sound of his own voice. See the boy with his homemade
Morse Code machine, his telescope and celestial map. See
a world snapping open like a snake’s mouth to grab him. See him
terrified at his window, but still staring down an endless dawn.
find ferns and fireflies and a creek filled with snakes and turtles.
Find an endless parade of four-color heroes posed in silhouette
before a rising sun. Find me on the floor, against the couch,
as I wait for the vampire show to start. Find my porous shell
desperate to be filled. Crack me open and find water
and air, carbon and nitrogen, elastic neurons always firing.
Find the ghost-girl wearing a top hat, the cute slayer
with a necklace instead of a scythe, letting me know
I didn't have to be afraid. Find the fingerprints of the man
who touched my body unbidden, the taste of his breath
that I can never seem to shake off. Is it desire or delirium
that opens us like orchids? I walked into the world looking
for faith and only found destruction, a stake to the heart,
a holy spider with too much wisdom. What does it mean
when monsters make monsters and I make them my own?
crack me open and find organs and bones, hairline fractures
and electrical signals jumping along my body’s pathways.
Find the picture of my father fishing with his father,
my brother behind them holding me in the boat,
a flicker of sunlight building at the edge of the lake.
Someone tell all the men I never knew but adored
that they’ve stolen the pennies I’d kept to cover my eyes
and now I no longer know if I can tell my own story.
Crack me open and find I am empty. Let me try again:
see the tenderness of survival. See the unbroken boy
running in his yard, surrounded by fireflies. See the sled
and the makeshift hill, see him covered in snow. See him
fierce, unwavering, finding a forest in his mind and building
a treehouse out of nothing more than moments and images
and the sound of his own voice. See the boy with his homemade
Morse Code machine, his telescope and celestial map. See
a world snapping open like a snake’s mouth to grab him. See him
terrified at his window, but still staring down an endless dawn.
Anthony Frame is an exterminator from Toledo, Ohio, where he lives with his wife. He is the author of A Generation of Insomniacs and of three chapbooks, most recently Where Wind Meets Wing (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018). He is also the editor/publisher of Glass Poetry Press, which publishes the Glass Chapbook Series and Glass: A Journal of Poetry. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poet Lore, Third Coast, Muzzle Magazine, The Shallow Ends, Harpur Palate, and Verse Daily, among others, and in the anthologies Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Books (Minor Arcana Press, 2014), and Not That Bad: Dispatches form the Rape Culture (HarperCollins, 2018). He has twice been awarded Individual Excellence Grants from the Ohio Arts Council.
Leslie Lindsay’s work has been published in various literary and art journals, including: Up the Staircase Quarterly (cover art), Another Chicago Magazine (ACM), Wild Roof Journal, Spring-Summer, Brushfire Arts & Literature, The Closed Eye Open, Tiferet Journal, Mud Season Review, Western Michigan Review, Fall 2023, and On the Seawall, Model Home: A Study Under Compression, a photo essay in miniature, April 2023.
