The first indication that something had happened

Was when a number of squad cars

Raced past me in the general direction of the railroad station

I chose not to get involved

As the was no need for me to be there

It was only as I closed the hardware store

That I saw Denis walking towards me

He was not smiling as he normally did


There had been an incident at the railroad station

Somebody had thrown themselves in front

Of an express train passing through at speed

Denis was a cop who I had known since high school

I could see that he had some bad news

At first I thought that Martha or my brother

Had for some reason been involved

I have some bad news Jack

Lemon is dead

Our friend Lemon is dead


Unlike many others in Ross

Who I had known all my life

Lemon was an outsider

Who had moved into the town

When I was in my early twenties

It was then that I had met Alberta

Who was a brute of a woman

Some years older than him


We quickly became friends

And frequented many of the local bars

I had once been a football player

Before injury ruined my fledgling career

I had that in common with Lemon

We had both been promising players

Who ended up on the injury scrapheap

I had bought my hardware shop

After I finished playing football

Whereas Lemon flitted from job to job

Technically he had never left the team

She had the most amazing eyes 

Lemon used to show me photographs 

Of her when she was about eighteen 

Although you would not guess it now 

Alberta was a very beautiful woman 

And then her problems started 

She started eating and her drinking 

Put us both to shame 

But Lemon still loved her 

Even thought she could be quite mad 

He could never forget what she once was 

In the years before they moved to Ross 

He was once the golden boy 

A football player heading upwards 

That is why he kept the photographs in his wallet 

She was his girl and he was proud of her 

Things became worse when he lost his career 

This is what had anchored her 

Before Ross there were many towns 

But they could not settle 

Occasionally she was in trouble with the cops 

Nothing drastic just trouble like driving when drunk

Or picking fights with people who had no wish to fight 

The Alberta we know now is just a pale shadow

Of what she once was when she was much younger

She is now a taciturn woman who says very little

Her beauty and spirit now long dulled 

If I didn’t know better then I would blame the drugs 

They were meant to do good but really did very little 

She just retreated into her tormented cave

Of raw and intolerable dreams 

tbc