By Nicole Rollender

Oh, luscious lemon--dishabille, your rind curling off,
your canary-yellow skin stippled with earthy browns, faint olives--
I stand, enraptured. How can a lemon, already peeled,
ripening into acidy green, be so radiant, so joyously bathed
in light, and the half-shadow crossing it, the color of brandy
and ripe leaves, nearly breaking my heart? I'm entering
this still life--the way she entered me--I can enter
because its perfection has been marred: The bread
is sliced into, there's a half-filled roemer, and even the pinked
and ultramarine asparagus is starting to turn. See, these things
are made more beautiful by use. I witnessed my body
falling in love with her, my pelvic bones stretching apart,
her lemon-sized body floating in my distended belly,
a black line arcing over what had been taut and tight. You
can imagine how this feels, some tears, some laughter,
watching your body this way: becoming weighted.
This Old Master has invited me into his still life; we're
becoming intimates in this delicious space. Like the lemon,
a flirty nude starting to unfurl into decay, I see my body
in the light for what it is: perishable and lovely, a temporary
place useful to her. In time, we'll separate bodies, this girl
and me. But for now, I'm happy with my two lemon loves:
one within and without, bathed in fragrant, alive lights.