Lemons, and: Drought Garden: Lemon Tree, and: The Tangerine Tree Has Something to Say about My Infertility

Lemons

The yard fills with rotting lemons.Their rinds so thick the branches mopewith their weight. I hear them thudagainst the hardened earth at night;the dogs bark when they break free.This is an excuse to walk out of the houseto smell what Pine Sol stoleand say I need to clean that, someday.

I pick up the ones without worms,crush and squish them into lemonade,but even sugar cannot corrupt the taste of abandonment,that awkward hello when I greet my auntafter we fought at Thanksgiving. That was a year ago,that fight in that cliché, when life hands you lemons;

I change lemons into people. This is to excuseall the changes I have not made to understand heralcoholism, to learn when not to speak in myprofessor voice, to allow some sense of decorumin my father's house. Two weeks ago, it rained.

Worms crawled out and baked into permanent punctuation.Damn you, lemons, for making them semicolons;the thought must always move in the direction of gravity.Damn you, gravity, for not working well enoughto distance me from this metaphor of lemons I've started.Damn you, metaphor, for being only one side of this punctuation

I'm making because I can't explain forgivenessin an acceptable way. It would be nice, right?To clean up all these lemons? To shovel the rot fillingthis terrible yard? So to unburden this metaphor, do nothing.

Watch the branch swing in the breeze, another lemonland on the soil. Write Tia into the poem, but omit her name.Hear them crash and keep you up at night.

Drought Garden: Lemon Tree

The lemon tree is dying.Still, for some reason,the leaves are still thereunwilling to give uptheir place on the branch.

Perhaps, they wish spring,a rain, a gentle sunto bring them back.This is my own faultfor not watering or saving water,grey water, with bucketsunder my sink. I couldn't

give the plant secondhand water.Its history of chemicalscould be poison.I couldn't giveit secondhand anythingas if it didn't deservemy attention the first time.

The water was restricted,though neighbors cheatedand I could have, too, to save it.

But I like rules and followed themand watched the browning leavesfrom my office windowas it watched me decayinto our own places of comfort;complacent with our sedentary lifestyles.Though, perhaps, we're both already deadand too stubborn to acknowledgethe dirt taking us back.

The Tangerine Tree Has Something to Say about My Infertility

You're not even in the backyard.You're behind the garageBetween its stuccoAnd the fence surroundingOur house, in a small patch ofDirt that was covered in oilWhen we moved in.We don't water you.And still, somehow, you manageto bear fruit.