"Have you ever been hungry, with children, Captain Kirk

have you ever been brought down below your knees

there is nothing to eat, nothing to earn

your partner is conscripted in our great tlhIngan fleet

you have not seen her for four years and counting

your children are crying for something to eat

there are bodies of the dead, the shattered and dying

there are bodies but nothing, nothing to eat

you have eaten the leather of your shoes and coat

you have boiled newspaper to grey pulp to relieve

their cries and the endless endlessly gnawing

you dream only of fields, of orchards, and meat

You already know the conclusion to this

my children were dying, my partner likely dead

I kept their mouths clean, their conscience unburdened

in the blackest time I did. I desecrated the dead.

My children are living, my son sent for training

whatever the army, they give food and a bed

my daughter lives with me, we don't speak of my partner

whose name has gone missing from the registry for bread

I have no opinion. I have no answer. I have only

my children with me. I have shoes on my feet

I have food every day now. Sometimes my daughter

will bring something sweet. Sometimes my son

sends us a package of things we had forgotten

to dream of: honey, brown spice, and cured salty meat.

But this thing you offer, this strange yellow fruit

is nothing like I have ever once seen

The scent of the peel, the taste juice and sour

as though to expel any lingering sting."

"Christine Chapel has said that eating a lemon

cuts any bitter in half and brings you back to now."

"It reminds me of a day my beloved

asked me to hold her hands in a vow."

She smiled, lemon juice still wet on her lips

ate peel and another second remembered

still smiling, then licked her stained fingertips.

"That is my story. It is not uncommon

for many women with children who lived through that time.

This fruit is quite strange- I have not forgotten

simply shifted perspective to this thin yellow rind."

"Keep the seeds. Maybe someday you'll plant that orchard

a row of lemon trees for your beloved."

"The soil here is poor, I will not expect it

to grow, flower, fruit, for the branches to spread."

"You never know. Spock told me once

how the same vine, the same seed, can grow in other lands

produce different fruit that is none the less brilliant

for being produced outside native sands.

Keep it. Perhaps she will return

one day, one day touch your hand."

She was silent, closed her eyes, shook her head.

"Do not look for hope. But I will plant a seed

and let it be. We will see what happens.

That's enough for me."

Warning: Mentions of cannibalism.