Montale’s Lemons by Ishion Hutchinson

 My first snow, I open the pages

of Montale, the scent of iron

and light coming out of heads

of lemon trees in the middle

of an orchard where raucous boys

play, not hearing the eel-quiet laureate

who roams under a sky dappled with rust.

He comes through the gate, plucks

acanthus, unburdening himself of the city

and the classics left in his study.

Standing still, his shadow moves

to branches brushing earth,

freckling it with flame. Montale stoops

in flecked leaves, to a flickering secret,

and what could be translated

as winter fixes a spire in my chest

and my eyes go low down

with that crouching tower;

I cling to a still revolving truth:

the world is a golden calyx,

but home is a burst lemon,

a child weeping at the cane root.