A Clear Room for Onions
I keep my life in a paper bag,
one of those straight, brown
bags you might get at a grocery store.
What I’d really like to do
is stretch out,
build a house
with rooms
for each thing in my life.
I’d have one room
with a plaque that reads:
ONION ROOM
another plaque that says,
PLEASE RELAX, YOU DON’T HAVE TO EAT IT.
I KNOW YOU DON’T LIKE ONIONS.
Another room for apples
all in red.
I would put my books
down on a shelf in a gray room,
gray like the color of smoke;
smoke is the color
of listening.
Sometimes I wish I would
spend more time in this room.
I really want to have space.
There will be plenty of clean light
from windows and lamps.
My guitar will go in a room
with a plaque:
DISTRACTION.
Each room will have colors.
A blue room for the water
I carry in a canteen
because I’ve learned my lesson.
I’ll have to put my heat
in an orange room.
Red has been taken by apples,
and yellow is reserved for my childhood.
A clear room for onions,
transparent like my love.
What I really want is a house
to extend my back through
and yawn.
I’ve heard that
if you put things
in paper bags,
they ripen faster,
but I keep stumbling over objects in the dark
and the humid smell
of paper is stifling.