Let me take a moment to survey
all the Lemons from my Lemon Tree.
There they hang  – polished and gleaming
As though the buds produced them new.
The oldest is eighteen, that sunshiny globe
hides a bitter tang of unwanted seduction
and sits beside it the smaller lemon
that was my broken engagement to a silly young boy.
The largest lemon is static at ten;
borne from a union I should have kept hold
and above them sit the collection of citrus
that’s produced the most sour fruits of all:
there’s duplicity that still looks so full of promise
yet spits a taste that still makes me cry.
There’s the one for a sexual assault
that hides an embittered old flesh
and then there’s my most recent ‘friend’;
his is an acrid disappointment;
the most recently spiteful and sharp.

Let me take a moment to survey
all the Lemons from my Lemon Tree:
In darkest hour I pluck them one by one
and make them an embittered lemonade
and I’m sure with such a poison made
t’would be a fitting way – to make it all just go away.