The Lemon Tree

These poems, written in prose blocks, capture memories of growing up in the Inland Empire in California. Through looking back, as if through prisms, the speaker of these poems remembers pivotal experiences that occurred during her journey from child to adult. She searches for love, looking deeply into religion, marriage, romantic relationships, and friendships, and faces both barrenness and abundance, darkness and light, winter and summer, trauma and love. The speaker comes to find her identity through the symbol of the lemon tree, which ultimately becomes her personal tree of life.