By Randall Brown

“Well,” she said, “what’s it mean?”

I thought I’d try to save her. “That guy, Pablo. He really liked lemons.”

“That’s all?” The marker hovered over the whiteboard.

I thought of that bird on television, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I thought of her stepping in front of the class for this first time, our real teacher somewhere in the back corner watching her, and how she quivered as I would’ve, any of us would’ve, and how it stopped when she read the poem, except for her voice. All that lemon made my mouth full of spit. I thought of Pavlov then, and that led me far from any answer.

“Well?” I could hear the “anyone?” in her question.

“The lemon is full of the world, not the other way around.” Sam says this, the answer man. I can see the lemon spark in her gratitude for Sam.

“That’s a start,” she says. “Who can add to it?”

I wish I knew what she was looking for. All I can think is that they are yellow.

Copyright 2018 Brown