{"id":121,"date":"2025-10-23T23:16:54","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T23:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/?page_id=121"},"modified":"2025-11-07T22:38:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T22:38:21","slug":"terry-trowbridge-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/poetry\/terry-trowbridge-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Anatomy of the Lemon: Leathery Escarp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Terry Trowbridge<\/span><\/p>\n

Leathery escarp. Leathery escarp.<\/span><\/p>\n

Someone labeled the outer skin with an editorial.<\/span><\/p>\n

Were they critical, or were they vegan victorious?<\/span><\/p>\n

Or did Alfred label Batman\u2019s yellow oval around his leathery totem?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The toy plastic football fit for my kindergarten hand<\/span><\/p>\n

was bright orange, and so light, a reminder<\/span><\/p>\n

that it was just a toy, not a real football, which was equipment,<\/span><\/p>\n

but my first-grade football could have been a lemon,<\/span><\/p>\n

with throwable heft, long-bomb lemon balm with a spiral twist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leathery as the old pigskin. Seamlessly self-sewn on its stem.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Those pores that scent the fingers with the smell of yellow<\/span><\/p>\n

are as rough as fingerprints. Do they feel and grip,<\/span><\/p>\n

the fruit being the perfect shape opposite of opposable thumbed hands;<\/span><\/p>\n

why wouldn\u2019t lemon skin be tactile, sensitive, uniquely identifiable?<\/span><\/p>\n

Leathery like a glove with a glove\u2019s own leathery prints.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do the forensics team call a glove the criminal\u2019s leathery escarp left behind?<\/span><\/p>\n

When they smell cleaner, do they smell erasure, do they smell lemon acid scrubbings<\/span><\/p>\n

smears of human oils away in a game of pores-versus-pores?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Leathery like the Devil, then?<\/span><\/p>\n

The leathery escarp of the culprit fruit?<\/span><\/p>\n

Sliced, it is a spotlight against the sky,<\/span><\/p>\n

against the prison escapee.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the lemon rind, the leathery wings<\/span><\/p>\n

that promise a sting in every cut<\/span><\/p>\n

in exchange for innocence.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A child\u2019s fruit for comic books and football games.<\/span><\/p>\n

An adult\u2019s fruit for twist endings.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\nTerry Trowbridge Leathery escarp. Leathery escarp. Someone labeled the outer skin with an editorial. Were they critical, or were they…\n<\/div>\n
Continue reading “Anatomy of the Lemon: Leathery Escarp”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"parent":322,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-121","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/121\/revisions\/192"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}