Ode to a Yellow Onion

And what if I had simply passed you by, your false skins gathering light in a basket, those skins of unpolished copper, would you have lived more greatly? Now you are free of that metallic coating, a broken hull of parchment, the dried petals of a lily— those who have not loved you will not know differently. But you are green fading into yellow— how deceptive you have been. Once I played the cithara, fingers chafing against each note. Once I worked the loom, cast the shuttle through the warp. Once I scrubbed the tiles deep in the tub of Alejandro. Now I try to deciper you. Beyond the village, within a cloud of wild cacao and tamarind, they chant your tale, how you, most common of your kind, make the great warrior-men cry but a woman can unravel you.