Mornings when sky is white as dried gristle
and the air’s unhealthy, coast
smothered, and you gone
I could stay in bed
and be the woman who aches for no reason, each day
a small death of love, cold rage for dinner,
coffee and continental indifference
at dawn.
Or dream lazily a market day—
bins of fruit and celery, poultry strung up,
loops of garlic and peppers. I’d select one
yellow onion, fist-sized, test its sleek
hardness, haggle, and settle a fair price.
Yesterday, a long day measured by shovel
and mattock, a wrestle with roots—
calm and dizzy when I bent over to loosen my shoes
at the finish—I thought
if there were splendors,
what few there were, knowledge of them
in me like fire in flint
I would have them …
and now I’d say the onion,
I’d have that, too. The work it took,
the soup it flavors, the griefs
innocently it summons.