The Paddock Review

The Lemon

 

is a still life 

halved    

         on the cutting board,

three seeds 

scoop- dropped in the trash.

 

Years ago, I was the softest  

part of this fruit,

my presence sliced

/          and quartered    /        slung 

over the edge

of a glass            garnish

at the bar

where I served

and knocked back vodka tonics.

 

Yesterday I almost wrote

my body is a lemon

on the medical clipboard.

Instead, I checked 

the box {      } 

for Type One Diabetes, 

my belly laced 

with plastic tubing, 

the vial of insulin 

ripest when kept cold  

in a box next to the butter.

 

Today, I am teaching

my daughter

how to exhale

and form the letter

“h,” for hat or happiness, 

whichever she prefers.

She taps her fingertips together

in the sign for “more.”  

“More what?,” I want to know 

and she points to the garden of dahlias 

and porcelain ducks, and 

makes a tinsel! sound with her tambourine.

 

I press my own fingers together

in a mantra:

I am both the fruit and the tree, 

the hands 

that rub her clean,

and if she asks if I have ever 

been rejected I will say yes

 

I have been 

soured, bursting yellow 

from the sprout, better 

left for later / long after 

the apple and avocado

have gone to waste.

 

 

 

This poem is from the chapbook Tyger-Tyger by Siobhan Casey (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://finishinglinepress.com/product/tyger-tyger-by-siobhan-casey/