I Smile Lemon Peel

By Elizabeth Shvarts

“I Smile Lemon Peel” is a heart-wrenching, at times sour (no pun intended) journey of a woman finding her place in the world as she navigates her relationship with her body and her struggle to reclaim her agency over it. An homage to the image of the 1950s housewife baking a lemon meringue pie, this poem depicts the untold story of women as survivors, not victims, as they witness sweets curdle before their eyes, refusing to crumble when people pillage their bodies/souls.

Lemons are ripest in the winter
tenderized, tossed into sweet tart
      Baked into the space between
                           the night sky and infinity

                                        Fruit falls softly from the tree only to rot
                                        If golden orbs shatter in the shadows do they really
                                        bruise?

                                        The wind’s wolf-whistles lacerate the silence basso-profundo 
                                        brushes my lips like pine needles like daggers 
                                        slice my peeling skin and suckle milk enough to leave a drought       

                                                              Didn’t Mama tell you too much milk makes 
                                                 your bones brittle?
                                                              Too strong for the mouths of little boys so 
                                                 how can you stomach lemon juice but you

                                                              Lick pulp like lollipop            
                                                              whistle becomes sigh becomes snarl
                                                              So instead I bite back                 block
                                                              caustic citrus crackling 
                                                              My tongue corrodes beneath its golden aura

                                      When life gives me lemons 
                                      my mouth contorts into pucker- up 
                                      Pluck lipstick labors as easily as I
                                      lace up my apron  

                                      Palimpsest of sugar and spice 
                                      curdles into eggshells and lemon peels
                                      sprinkled with pepper spray and whale-bone smile and
                                      yellow pinwheels shiny house key wedged between 
                                      tongue and tart to taste

                  I singe my hands on ceramic
                  Let cooling-rack bones and pitcher-hips simmer before 
                  prep-boy prick double-prong-licks the spatula clean
                  Mama, isn't this how love is
                   supposed to taste?
                  Like pit
                  Like pillage


                  The difference between hearth and hellfire 
                  is in the hand that does the lighting
                  Look at my calluses              lemon-flesh-pulp
                  seed and all choke on the hollow till you learn to harvest your own


Life gives me lemons
            Suck them sour or not at all

Process

Initially, I simply titled this piece “Lemons,” as a nod to the adage, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” As a writer, especially one who writes through a satirical, introspective lens, I’ve always been captivated by the idea of subverting quotes we’ve heard time-and-time again, like, “The early bird gets the worm,” or, in this case, “When life give you lemons, make lemonade.” While the adage generally means to make the best out of a bad situation, I wondered, “What if you can’t sweeten every bitter aspect of your life? Why should you subject yourself to a harmful situation on a fraying thread of hope?” Thinking back to my experiences being cat-called and reading national headlines about women being dismissed after coming forward to share that they were sexually assaulted because they were “asking for it,” or expected to enjoy unwelcome male advances. Eventually, this infuriated attitude towards women being expected to pucker up and smile with a lemon in our mouths, that is, smile through the pain manifested itself into lines then verse then stanzas, eventually forming “I Smile Lemon Peel.” However, in addition to chronicling women’s experiences with being taken advantage of in a raw and unflinching way, I wanted to capture this feeling of fear, I wanted to return agency to the woman, drawing upon the image of a house-wife baking a lemon-meringue to a reclamation of her femininity as a reflection of her power, not a commodity to be plucked from a tree or sheltered behind a glass counter.