Venn diagram featuring working-class wages and lemons

Those times my tongue becomes a lemon
filling my mouth with bitter pith
stoppering sound so it coagulates
in my throat, becomes
a stuck fruit;

I must breathe through my nose in short, calm waves;
too fast and the choking begins—
too slow and I pass out from lack of oxygen.

My girlfriend tells me about baking
little cakes with small amounts of choice ingredients
bought in tiny organic quantities
from the wholefood cooperative down the road;
how she carefully measures each dash and sprinkle,
adds her own finishing garnish.

When I visit next she gifts me one;
The small, neat sponge
gently sadistic in my palm.
It opens its mouth;
down through its textured gullet
is a scene of fluorescent aisles
packaging clutching its perishable innards.

When I raise it to my wet mouth and bite
it crumbles perfectly,
tastes like salt rain, a cold winter house, dwindling daylight;

I peer at her quivering joy
try to smile round the globular lemon.

Rachael Hill is a Manchester Poet, founder of The Space Poetic, and an MFA student at The Manchester Writing School. She was awarded by Wirral Poetry Festival, writes at ‘Poet Notes’ on Substack, sometimes IG’s at @rhillpoetnotes, and is a lover of cats and climbing