Sweet Onion Soup
by Tim Seibles
When a man is killed
the wind doesn’t cool his face
and the sky is like an urn, like
a painted bowl turned over on him.
He’s so weak lying there—his hand
is like a starfish too far from the sea.
He would like to lift it up and
place it over his face to fend off
the glare of things still living.
And even if his stomach is empty
he only wants a little to eat—maybe
half-a-slice of bread and one spoonful
of sweet onion soup. Not like
when he was alive, which already seems
three Aprils ago, when he would eat
everything he could fit
into his eyes. “One time,”
his father told him, “when your cousin
turned his head to sneeze
you stole the porkchop off his plate.”
But when a man is killed he
doesn’t remember being a boy very much—
maybe a few things, like trying
to keep a bullfrog in a shoebox
or having to sit still in church
while his father’s raised right eyebrow
flew above him like a hawk.
But he’s in such a helpless mood.
His mouth is dry and he can’t quite
move his tongue across his lips
which is something he used to do
all the time.
“Sweet Onion Soup” from Hurdy-Gurdy
by Tim Seibles, © 1992
Cleveland State University Poetry Center
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