By Paul Willis
A very little thing is rolling
down the street at dawn,
some little yellow thing, a lemon,
rolling down the center
of the street from the little
grove just up the hill.
Has the cold of the morning
snapped its hold upon the tree?
Or did someone toss it, carelessly,
to see it mind its little business,
bundling down the little street?
Will it fall in the little creek
at the bottom and ride
the current to the sea?
Will it float there—a lemon buoy,
a yellow bobber, a little
sour island on the salt rim
of the little world?
Paul Willis has published six collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Little Rhymes for Lowly Plants (White Violet Press). His latest book is a YA Elizabethan time-travel novel, All in a Garden Green (Slant). He is a professor of English at Westmont College and a former poet laureate of Santa Barbara. Also by this poet: "A Story of Hands" and "Golden"