Preserved Lemon, Seventh Week

The jar had been sitting on the sill since before the first frost, and by week seven the rinds had gone translucent — almost stained-glass, but stranger. I pressed the macro lens to the glass and waited for the four o'clock light to catch the brine at the exact angle where the salt crystals suspended inside lit up like something geological. The outside world is completely gone. There is only the jar, the curing, and the amber.