the smell of lemons

There was a lemon tree at the side of the little tan house without stairs.

The day we left that house mother took my hand and said "Look at this. Smell this. Remember this."

I stood, the prickly grass sticking up between my toes. I felt the sun fall between my shoulders, watched the crowded waxy leaves curl around the white pickets on our side, smelled the blossoms and peels wrap around my head, and tasted the dirt-dust flicked up by the stems as mother picked the larger ones I could not reach.

I remember every time I press in my thumb nail and hold the porous skin under my nose.