Lemon Tree
Ophelia Baker | Young Artists Issue | Poetry, Winter 2026
Bitterness grows, a lemon seed in my chest,
that little nook beneath my diaphragm,
all flesh
Next year maybe
there will be a whole tree between my ribs.
I’ll pluck fruit for some other lover
we’ll make lemonade too sweet
and not enough sour.
It’s strange
how my mouth preceded my heart those days
and I wonder if you felt betrayed
when I waltzed in,
so well adjusted,
two months after feigning faith
in a god I'd never believe in
These days I guard myself against your face
trying not to look in case you might see
I still write poems,
still water
the lemon tree.
______________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“Just as a trace fossil alludes to a bigger story, locking the object in time, these two poems in particular are snapshots of my own messy navigation through complicated feelings about a break-up. I wrote them while careening towards bitterness. I craved to create something which I could leave behind for them to “find," an impression of how I really feel.”
Ophelia Baker is a senior at Wheaton North High School, and will be majoring in Journalism and Chinese at DePaul University in the fall. She placed 1st and 2nd in poetry at the DuKane Conference Litfest in 2025, and won Critic’s Choice for poetry in 2024. She and her sister have shown their rebuilt 1968 Dodge Charger at MCACN two years in a row winning the Future Generations' Fabricator Award and the Gilmore Car Museum's Sponsor Pick. Daily cappuccinos and cuddles with her corgi mix, Mr. Wiggles, are non-negotiables.
Lemon Tree
Ophelia Baker
Young Artists Issue | Poetry, Winter 2026
Bitterness grows, a lemon seed in my chest,
that little nook beneath my diaphragm,
all flesh
Next year maybe
there will be a whole tree between my ribs.
I’ll pluck fruit for some other lover
we’ll make lemonade too sweet
and not enough sour.
It’s strange
how my mouth preceded my heart those days
and I wonder if you felt betrayed
when I waltzed in,
so well adjusted,
two months after feigning faith
in a god I'd never believe in
These days I guard myself against your face
trying not to look in case you might see
I still write poems,
still water
the lemon tree.
______________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“Just as a trace fossil alludes to a bigger story, locking the object in time, these two poems in particular are snapshots of my own messy navigation through complicated feelings about a break-up. I wrote them while careening towards bitterness. I craved to create something which I could leave behind for them to “find," an impression of how I really feel.”
Ophelia Baker is a senior at Wheaton North High School, and will be majoring in Journalism and Chinese at DePaul University in the fall. She placed 1st and 2nd in poetry at the DuKane Conference Litfest in 2025, and won Critic’s Choice for poetry in 2024. She and her sister have shown their rebuilt 1968 Dodge Charger at MCACN two years in a row winning the Future Generations' Fabricator Award and the Gilmore Car Museum's Sponsor Pick. Daily cappuccinos and cuddles with her corgi mix, Mr. Wiggles, are non-negotiables.