The onion loves the onion.

It hugs its many layers,

saying O, O, O,

each vowel smaller than the last. 

 

Some say it has no heart.

It doesn’t need one.

It surrounds itself,

feels whole.Primordial.

First among vegetables. 

 

If Eve had bitten it

instead of the apple,

how different

Paradise.   

From “The Sex Lives of Vegetables” in The Blue Hour of the Day, 2007, McClelland and Stewart.