Onions by William Matthews

Onions

by William Matthews

(published in his Selected Poems and Translations, 1969-1991, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992)

How easily happiness begins by   

dicing onions. A lump of sweet butter   

slithers and swirls across the floor   

of the sauté pan, especially if its   

errant path crosses a tiny slick

of olive oil. Then a tumble of onions.

This could mean soup or risotto   

or chutney (from the Sanskrit

chatni, to lick). Slowly the onions   

go limp and then nacreous

and then wha...