An Eighth of a Lemon

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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For Martha in the early years
life was recess, nothing more.
She knelt on asphalt,
quartered oranges for kittens

who never lost stringed mittens,
whose London Bridges
never fell down.
For Martha now,

life’s Parkview Manor
where a woman in white,
three times a day, bleeds
an eighth of a lemon into her tea.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.