This Eureka lemon,

this only true lemon,

this mother of all lemons,

was planted in someone’s field of seaside dreams

a generation ago.

Now in serial tenant territory

its untended bounty reaches for the sky

and rains down a citrus glut

that no gluttony can satisfy.

I box them up to share

and Mr. Across-the-road-but-one barters fish

in return for freezing the squeezings

for the summer lemon drought,

but there’s a limit to how many lemons

a street can absorb in its life.

I’m only renting the tree

but I can watch its random neglect no longer

and, having given up on myself,

I’m slowly getting it fit

and in shape for the next generation,

as I try not to think of bulldozers

and two-storey eyesores with sea views.

Amongst its criss-cross branches

I find mundane secrets

of upturned plastic bottles filled with pest bait

and a pair of men’s shorts snagged in the canopy,

a victim of wind-blown snowdropping.

Hardly Eureka moments

but a connection across the decades

to someone else who believed there was a future.