Lemon (January)

Poet Thomas Shapcott set his writing class to describe a lemon. Each of twelve attendees was handed a fruit from his brown paper bag. Lemons vary. Little ones little larger than a ping pong ball. Great carbuncle lemons, thick of skin, scarce of pip. Supermarket lemons waxed shiny, badged with sticker. Shapcott advised employment of one colour in a text was effective. Did he mean the greenish pigment at the tips of some lemons? Some are pale as lemonade, others bright as a January sunrise. Shapcott ended the class joking he distributed limes, not lemons. They still looked like lemons.