And so in the midst of all that’s broken in the world, its Day One of National Poetry Writing Month for 2020. Today’s prompt is to write a self-portrait poem in which you make a specific action a metaphor for your life. My choice is life as peeling onions.

***
When it all
falls apart,
like a ball
of yarn
slowly unravelling,
the wind whispers
in my ear: this is
how life is,
an onion, complex
in its layers
each hiding and
being hidden,
drawing tears
as its juices
released in
a flash rise.
In the stinging
we remember
the promise
of savoury things
where in the present
bland things lie.