The Lemon

I wasn’t good at ponytails or braids, Mom says, lifting a freshly rinsed chicken from the sink and laying it on an expanse of foil, but this I do well. She wraps a just-right length of string around the wings, ties an elegant knot—precise as the surgeon she might have been if she hadn’t decided the hours were incompatible with kids. I’ve tried telling her the ponytails weren’t important, that it all worked out anyway because my sister was good at hair, but decades later, she still apologizes as she pins the thighs to the body with the poultry needles that live in the top corner drawer. She ties another knot around the legs. Her ring waits on the windowsill. I wonder if she struggled with braids because I struggled with sitting still and smiling for photographs. As if she is the daughter, I hate to think of her eyeing absurd standards, feeling she doesn’t measure up. Mom sets a lemon in what remains of the bird’s throat and seals the flap of skin with another needle, another deft loop of string. How much of motherhood is simply holding things together? I don’t ask. The lemon is because I love their smell. I love the warmth in the kitchen, but I remain unconvinced by the myth that motherhood is good for women. I watch her run a final needle under the chicken’s backbone. The trick is not to puncture your own finger, she tells me. At nearly forty, I remain in awe of her competence, which is perhaps another myth, one I am letting her teach me as I finally learn to cook flesh. I follow her instructions to fit the rack over the bed of peeled vegetables, to grease it ever so lightly. She lowers the chicken into its cradle and I squat the roasting pan into the oven for her. It’s easier to obey now than it was at fourteen; it’s a strange, raw thing to honor a mother by not becoming one—to accept the slippery weight of the freedom you’ve been handed. I hold the platter steady, later, to catch the roast as she turns it off the rack. It’s absolutely a kind of witchcraft how perfect the chicken turns out—witchcraft and the patience to let it rest undisturbed for nearly an hour after cooking. The lemon is still whole and bright when we pull it from the bird.  

Ceridwen Hall is a poet and educator. Her books include Acoustic Shadows (Broadstone Books) and The School for Danger and Other Studies (forthcoming from Broadstone Books in 2026). Other work has appeared in TriQuarterly, Pembroke Magazine, The Cincinnati Review, Craft, Poet Lore, and other journals. You can find her at www.ceridwenhall.com. 

This essay is a Short Reads original.