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.