2 Poems
Clayre Benzadón
received her MFA at University of Miami. She is a Split Lip Magazine poetry reader. Her chapbook Liminal Zenith was published by SurVision Books. Her full-length collection Moon as Salted Lemon was a finalist for the 2021 Robert Dana-Anhinga Poetry Prize and semi-finalist in Sundress Publications’ Open Reading Period. She has been published in places including 14poems, SWWIM, and Fairy Tale Review. Find more about her at clayrebenzadon.com
Twitter & IG: @clayrebenz
Lemon: A Prelude
A lemon listens for when it’s listless,
a taste like a worthless hand-me-down,
a suck-the-syrup out of pulp
fiction, or a lemon-zappy type
fanzine, where I sip
and imbibe and draw
and still wait for the sex
to come seeping, like
a Sussex pond pudding
oozing with sweat, suet,
a whole sun
in its middle.
7 Ingredient (Ways to Wish for Someone’s Just Desserts) Lemon Bar Recipe
*What you will need: Butter, sugar, vanilla extract, salt, eggs, lemon juice
1) Immerse (yourself in the idea that) hand in sugar and salt (sweet means leave)
melted butter (flatter me lavishly) and vanilla (with husks of plainness) concoction.
2) Feed flour to the mix. (Feed it, the leftovers). Let sticky harden onto hand.
Note: The dough will be thick. (Heavy is the hand that kneads [needs] it).
3) Firmly press the crust into pan (I don’t allow room for a creamy massaging, or air bubbles). After it bakes, poke holes over top of crust.
4) Sift sugar (grit) and flour (finest part of) together to make the base of filling. Whisk eggs (foolish pies, thrown in your face [imaginatively speaking]), then the lemon juice (I’ll hand it to you), until fully combined (you look good yo(l)ked together with that other warm structure you crunch, gnash in your jaws, that hot hot crust, you smirk at me while you eat it).
5) Pour filling over crust. Bake the bars for 25 minutes, or until the center no longer jiggles.
(stop wiggling around—don’t worry, I’ll admit, the half-baked pastry tastes even better).
6) Remove the bars from the oven and let them completely cool (give them some to time stop being so angry). Once cool, lift the parchment paper out of the pan (you never did know the meaning of gentle). Dust with confectioners’ sugar and cut into squares (rub the lemon square’s face off, cause an uproar). Wipe the knife clean between each cut (you never did know the meaning of clean-cut)…
7) Identify me (thawed). Serve me this way.
