Sections of a poem called 'Should Start Now'


2
He is Polish.
Those bulges are onions.
Or those bulges are bulges
onions body –

These onions only:
Spanish (at a guess),
exerting globular pressure,
shadows in plastic,
foamy surface, gossamer membrane,
cuts into them can make you cry.

No.

Onions, these onions,
not equipment.

3
Should start now (really)
with letting go
it is not his being in here

but the fact of the fact
of his absence herein

language not fit for purpose
nominal inclemencies

he is not Polish
those are not onions

Tom Phillips 2012