When life hands you a lemon
You are not holding a mistake
reject, or serene yellow egg
but a blonde grenade
that explodes puckering sour
all through your mouth
acid that pales
pear, apple and peach
squeeze that brings to attention
potato, souvlaki, calamari.
Its zesty shrapnel trademarks
loaf and pie, square, drop and tart.
The pungent oil its leather hide releases
sweetens even garburator’s rancid breath.
Life, hand me more!
I could use a whole arsenal
of this kind of ade.
© 2015 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)
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This poem had its beginnings on Today’s Little Ditty, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes’ blog where her excellent interviewee children’s poet Nikki Grimes ended her interview by challenging writers with a prompt. From ten possible prompt words, I chose “Lemon.” (Read the interview and prompt HERE.)
Violet Nesdoly 
Fabulous, Violet! A blonde grenade worth its weight in gold. Thanks so much for joining in this month’s challenge!
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You’re welcome ~ What a fun challenge. It was hard to know which word to pick.
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You just came out swinging with that lemon!
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Ha! When the metaphor you come up with is so dangerous, do you have any choice? 😉
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Pow! A blonde grenade! Wonderful!
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“garburator”–is that an original? I like it!
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No Diane, not original. A garburator is one of those kitchen gadgets that grind up kitchen scraps.”Garburator” may have been a brand name at one time, but we call any of these by that name. We have one in our townhouse, mounted under the kitchen sink and part of the plumbing. We grind up orange, grapefruit and lemon rinds in it all the time as well as other vegetable matter.
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Love your word choices, Violet!
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Thank you, Tabatha! That means a lot, coming from you.
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