THE LATEST SCIENTIFIC
consensus is that lemons do not exist.
No matter that you’ve seen them in the fruit
and veg aisle every time you’ve been
to the supermarket, nor that you make
a mean lemon drizzle cake; lemons simply
do not exist. They know this because
they have conducted numerous tests
under the auspices of the highest authorities,
the implication being that you are clearly mistaken
and that what you were dealing with
was not a lemon, but something else entirely.
Every time you've ordered a diet coke
with a slice of lemon? You’ve been bamboozled.
Misled. Every time you’ve tried to spruce up
the fruit bowl with a little bit of zesty yellow?
The circuitry has been going wrong in your brain.
Because lemons, the scientists now believe,
do not exist. Never have done.
My advice to you? Go down to the bottom
of your garden, to the lemon tree behind the shed.
Pick one, and hold its waxy smoothness
to your cheek. Inhale its floral scent.
Know it intimately. Put it in your jacket pocket,
the inside one. Close to your breast.
