The Loss of Lemons (Chrys Tobey)

A woman had lemons in her head. It’s not that she wanted to make lemonade. She simply had lemons in her head. She could feel them in her head the way she could feel a star dying. The woman insisted on getting an MRI. She wanted to see X-rays of the lemons. She imagined it would be like looking at the moon suspended in the night sky. The technician gave her Bocelli to listen to. The woman smiled as the conveyor belt slid her into the machine like luggage in an airport.

The woman had no idea what Bocelli was singing. Estoy muriendo amor porque te extrano. She imagined the words were something about lemons. Te extrano, te extrano. Perhaps he had lost lemons. The conveyor belt shook back and forth, jiggled her body, as though she were on a motorboat. Te extrano, te extrano. Then the woman saw it: the ferry motoring towards Capri. She looked closer and saw her husband. The woman looked closer still and saw her husband smiling, his one missing tooth, on a tiny bus winding its way up the roads of Capri. And then she smelled the lemons. She saw the lemon orchards, lemon trees stretching for miles, wrapping around Capri like the gold ring that once wrapped around her left finger.

Origami (Meg Yardley)

Of course you can fold a bird. A rabbit
that puffs up at your breath.
Two interlocking rings from a single sheet

of kami. A waterlily. A star box. But now try
folding the jade plant you left in the car

to be scorched by the sun. Try
folding Afghanistan. Fold the wrinkles
of that conversation you wanted to have.

Inside-reverse-fold the empty space
in your Sundays. Try folding this city

of layers, peeling back taxis, scarves,
quarters dropped in paper cups,
Rockerfeller Plaza. Beginning with a bird base,

fold the Spanish jumbled in your ears. Quickly.
Fold the edges of the wind that cuts in

from the river. Make one valley fold
diagonally. Fold failures. Try folding
the empty space in your Sundays.

Start from a bird base again: that small girl
whose long dark hair looks like hers.

Fold the seven days of the week from a single
sheet of kami. Try folding money
into more money. In ten steps or less,

fold this city of layers. Petal-fold the winter
until it lies flat at the bottom of the star box

with Afghanistan and the empty space
in your Sundays. Now open up the bird:
count the creases left in the paper.