Lisa Reily is a former literacy consultant, dance director and teacher from Australia. Her poetry has been published in several journals, such as Amaryllis, London Grip, Panoplyzine, Magma Poetry (online) and Sentinel Literary Quarterly magazine. You can find out more about Lisa at lisareily.wordpress.com
sweet lemons
we climb the path, uneven stone,
reach the small wooden church on the hill;
we sit in the cool,
watch Bulgarian saints
eye us from ancient walls,
and small candles flicker
for those who have passed; I light one
for my mother,
and when I step outside, an old woman
plucks a plum from a nearby tree,
and gives it to me.
we travel on, over the railway track,
where a gypsy in a sparkling shawl waves to us
from a horse and cart,
a homeless kitten accepts my pat,
and horses, untethered, eat wildflowers.
outside our apartment, there is music in the air,
sirtaki, the sounds of Greece;
outside, a stranger collects me in the rain,
and I am not scared;
a little boy talks to me at the bus stop,
waits by my side
until his mother calls him home;
the taverna owner rescues a stray dog,
washes it, indifferent
to his customers who leave at the sight
of fleas drowned in poisoned rivers;
and at our small room, the owner’s son
cleans our clothes for free,
hangs bags of lemons from our door.
Lisa Reily