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Lisa Mullenneaux


Montale’s Lemons

Shoals of tiny fish swim up and down
and back and forth among your five lands —
collegiates, hikers, day trippers, the newly wed.

You who loved ironies cannot imagine
how many cram the coastal train that bears your name
to eat calzone and drink sweet Sciacchetrà.

Sons of fishermen you knew by name,
dropping their anchovy nets at night, casting for bream,
grape growers, squeezing life from salt-scarred earth,

harbor your words incised on every scabrous rock
that sing of lemons, lemons fat and firm
in groves that hug the terraced cliffs of Monterosso.