GREEN ONIONS
Mommy gave me green onions
While I was yet in my high chair.
I’d wrap fat fingers around green blades
And bite white until I cried.
Now, I ask you,
What’s a meal without an onion?
Soup beans and cornbread need
A quarter, a hunk, a slice.
Nice fried with potatoes, too.
Peeled, pickled, or chopped.
Dropped in batter and deep-fried,
Or just caramelized.
Infinite layers of skin,
Thin, veined, translucent as fairy wings.
Rings bring tears to my eyes,
Hot and sweet, like new love.
I go back to the garden for green onions,
Pull their dreadlocked heads from the gritty ground,
And eat them with cold biscuits until my nose runs.
“Green Onions.” Appalachian Journal: A regional studies review, vol. 33, no. 1 (Fall 2005).
