BREAD AND ONIONS
Almost happy today, we lie
Watching the jets deploy so high
They are simply motion and no sound,
And all we hear is close to ground:
Wasp, cicada, and blue-fly,
And now and then the osprey's cry.
Our picnic bag lies at your head:
Two onions, half a pound of bread,
A paper of cream cheese, a blue
Cucumber sweating icy dew.
And wingy things ply forth and back
With news of our egregious snack.
However well our kisses taste,
By each of them we are defaced.
It's politics we'll have to thank
If
you remain a lively, lank
Girl in striped blouse forever, I
Not unfit in your arms to lie.
Or, at the narcissistic worst,
By politics we'll have been cursed
When I am fingering twenty hairs
And you are fat and full of pr<lJyers.
And who, my ouzel, witch and star,
Will know us then for what we are?
None of which gives me, it is true,
The right one button to undo,
And nothing in the zenith flies
To teach us where our honor lies.
Yet heavy on the tilting ground
We'll move, and add one further sound.
Adrienne Rich
