ONION FINGERS Poem by Stefan Hertmans

You cut them gently like living things,
first in half and then the rings,
but it hurt you there
because the peelings touched your skin.

Now isn't the right time to talk
you'd just said.
Your eyes stung but it didn't
staunch the words.

Myself, I smelt red peelings,
the juice still in the fingers
I had laid on your hands.

That's how an angel visited me once,
while you slept feverishly,

and on the fire a pan
that shone for years in the evening light.

Muse, light up our path,
slice up our lives.

Embrace me, you,
your fingers smell
and they tremble.