A woman in Hong Kong
Buys a lemon
Her hair is straight
And unperfumed
Held around her face
By a cheap plastic beret
Made
In Hong Kong
A source of pride
She also buys
A mango
Some rice
And a small bottle
Of rice wine
But it is
This lemon
That’s important
For the first day she will simply
Enjoy the smell of this lemon
And then
She will cut it
Into paper thin slices
For her tea
And collect the juice
For her hair and body
Because
The smell of this lemon
Will last
For days
And her husband
Likes the smell of lemon
In Amsterdam
Her daughter
Will sit
In a smoky bar
Her Mandarin cheekbones
Framed by fake blonde hair
And men from around the world
Will come and watch her
And when she goes home
Early in the morning
The only thing that will
Cut through the smell
Of smoke and whiskey
Will be
The juice of a lemon
She bought in town
Because it reminded her
Of her mother
To whom she has not spoken
In three years
Four months
And sixteen days
One man
Will see the young woman
And through mystical connections
Forgotten in the modern world
Be made to understand
The connections
And he will walk out
Into the clean air
For he cannot bear to
Watch these women
And the drunken fools braying at them
He will write it all down
And these images
Will haunt him for many days
And he will try to explain it
To those whom he loves
And some will understand
And others will not
But all of them
Will marvel
At this
And no one will ever
See a lemon
The same way again
Bill Fletcher / 2007 / Amsterdam
I like your lemon story. Or is it a poem? What makes a poem a poem? Did you just start writing and see how the story developed, or did you know what the story was going to be first?
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