When my tears dry
I can see your rings
spilling off the cutting board
and the white juice
runnel up my fingers,
afterlife of your swelling bulb
under the tapered lips in the earth.
Egyptians saw eternity
in your unspooling center—
Ramses covered his eyes
with your concentric rings.
The Romans grew you in
gardens of volcanic ash—
rubbing you on sores, dog bites,
lumbago.
Armenians boiled
your parchment skin
to make yellow umber
for silk and wool.
Your calix and leaf
unwind a core
of air inside air, and staring
down there now I’m seeing
it all well up through the blurry light.
Sometimes I cut you quickly
for fry-up with sweet peppers
or sauté slow in vermouth for marsala
or mince for salsa.
My grandfather
sliced you raw for the long refugee road,
Gran melded you into near nothing
for the sweet hereafter of lamb shank.
Ubiquitous as I open the front door—
as the cold dark comes early
and your vapor covers the glass.
