The Lemon Tree

Every winter, just down the block, in a glass store front, a lemon tree blooms. You walk by day after day, and then suddenly, lemons--fat and heavy--and you wonder when they appeared; you wonder how the plant could have flowered and become fruit while you were doing little more than knocking ice off your boots and longing for spring. And one day, you just stand there; maybe your baby is in your arms or you're holding your love's hand or maybe you're alone, happily alone, and you can almost smell it, and you just know that if you were behind the glass you'd become absolutely intoxicated with the scent, heady with the citrus, and lemons, you say, right here in Brooklyn, and you hope you keep noticing them; you hope that every time you walk by you remember this feeling that's rising inside you and that the lemons won't disappear--that you won't let them disappear--as suddenly, and desperately, as they appeared.