How easily happiness begins by



dicing onions. A lump of sweet butter



slithers and swirls across the floor



of the sauté pan, especially if its



errant path crosses a tiny slick



of olive oil. Then a tumble of onions.







This could mean soup or risotto



or chutney (from the Sanskrit



chatni, to lick). Slowly the onions



go limp and then nacreous



and then what cookbooks call clear,



though if they were eyes you could see







clearly the cataracts in them.



It’s true it can make you weep



to peel them, to unfurl and to tease



from the taut ball first the brittle,



caramel-colored and decrepit



papery outside layer, the least







recent the reticent onion



wrapped around its growing body,



for there’s nothing to an onion



but skin, and it’s true you can go on



weeping as you go on in, through



the moist middle skins, the sweetest







and thickest, and you can go on



in to the core, to the bud-like,



acrid, fibrous skins densely



clustered there, stalky and in-



complete, and these are the most



pungent, like the nuggets of nightmare







and rage and murmury animal



comfort that infant humans secrete.



This is the best domestic perfume.



You sit down to eat with a rumor



of onions still on your twice-washed



hands and lift to your mouth a hint







of a story about loam and usual



endurance. It’s there when you clean up



and rinse the wine glasses and make



a joke, and you leave the minutest



whiff of it on the light switch,



later, when you climb the stairs.





