Neruda’s suggestive imagery in “Ode to a Lemon” gives the reader a novel and deeper look at the citrus. The imagery is a loosely veiled allusion to lust, sex and female anatomy. Neruda sees in his fruity cathedral “alcoves” — perhaps stations of the cross or confessionals, stained glass (“acidulous glass”) in the panels of a segment of lemon, “altars.”

    Other imagery Neruda uses in the poem are markets and merchandise. “Harbours are big with it” gives us the picture of a bustling port, a point of trade and commerce. “Bazaars for the light and barbarous gold” allude also to mercantile pursuits.

    In drawing, for instance, on the imagery of a cathedral, Neruda likens the sacrosanctity of religion to the inviolate beauty of the vagina. The lemon’s “alcoves unguessed to the eye” recall the folds and cornices of female genitalia. The metaphor gives us the divine, the reverent, the spirituality of religion and sex. The ecstasy in both its permutations.

    The lemon’s “aromatic facades” imply that the religion metaphor is also a subterfuge, just as the sour smell of a lemon conceals its sweetness, the pious virtuosity of religion conceals lust. The Magdalene effect — the harlot as a pious woman. Further alluding to the allure and sexuality of a lemon, of a woman.

    The mercantile metaphor — “harbour” and “bazaar” — allude to another aspect associated with sex and females: that of the world’s oldest profession: prostitution. 

    Throughout “Ode to a Lemon” Neruda uses alliteration to give sensuous movement to the poem. His choice of consonants, when spoken aloud, give an eroticism to the reading. “Lemon … loosed … moonlight … love’s … lashed” gives the mouth a half-open, tongue-imbued poutiness, both sensual and provocative. “Flashing made fruitage” is another softly suggestive alliteration involving pouty lips in its execution.

    Most of the consonants in this poem are soft, requiring that same pouty expressiveness associated with Marilyn Monroe. Lips play a large role in the recitation of this poem; lips are also an imperative element of the sexual experience. 

    The line breaks Neruda uses add to the eroticism of the poem, isolating words to give them sexuality in their recitation. “Brims,” alone on a line, softly consonated, gets drawn out lustily. Neruda uses line length to emphasize words and phrases, to make us pronounce them in a deliberate drawl, working with the sounds to induce lust and desire. The line breaks give us the suggestion of foreplay in the lingering expression of his ideas. By turns, he speeds up and slows down, line breaks his instrument, imitating the undulating rhythms of sex.

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