Onionlips

if we dare look at her when she’s near,

ignore the insistence all around us:

there’s nothing to see here—

then it’s true, onionlips are a dead giveaway.

if they’re not marked for the eye,

if they’ve been hacked squarely, flesh unfighting,

in pieces, clinging wet to the knife,

we’ll perceive oniony cadences in her voice, or we’ll even smell it on her breath

we always know.

something worthwhile is in there somewhere underneath,

probably, we think.

we wouldn’t know, of course, but we can assume.

when she moves to speak

the flapping yellow layers rasp against themselves.

she’s still got everything she’s said before half inside

half outside,

stuck on her mouth

someone is always pushing it back in

when she’s trying to push it out.

all we hear is a papery tearing sound.  irritating.

she’s been trying to tell us about everything,

but when she moves those onionlips,

those skins just fan the sting into our eyes.

everything she says makes us cry.

she’s calling us and we hear her

but we pretend and we say “huh? is anyone there?”

and we turn to the people around us and we say

it was no one.

and our friends and our coworkers and family and stuff

they know it was someone,

and they know who it was, too

because they get these same phone calls