Poem from the collection 'Cinnamon Fingers' by the Flemish poet Stefan Hertmans

Onion fingers

You cut them gently as if alive,

First crosswise and then the rings

But it hurt there

Where the skin could touch yours.

We don’t have to talk now

You had just said.

Your eyes sting but it does not

Staunch the words.

I smelled too, shredded red

The juice still in the fingers

That I had laid on your hands.

Thus an angel once visited me

While you feverishly slept,

And on the fire a pan

That gleamed for years with evening light.

Enlighten us, Muse,

Shred our lives,

Embrace me, you,

Your fingers smell

And they tremble.