In the midst of slicing onions, the poet
Receives a message from her Kitchen Witch
In almost-iambic-pentameter.
Anxiously she searches for paper and pencil
Before the elusive language
Falls away like the peel.
While she scribbles a furious shorthand,
A piece of onion sticks to the page;
Vapors cloud her eyes.
She plunges her pencil into the onion
And takes another stab at the poem.
Rosalie Calabrese is a native New Yorker and management consultant for the arts. In addition to press releases and poetry, she writes short stories and books and lyrics for musicals. Her work has appeared in magazines, journals, newspapers, anthologies, and on the Web. Among her credits are Cosmopolitan, Poetry New Zealand, And Then, Möbius, Thema, Poetica, Jewish Currents, The Mom Egg and The New York Times. She is listed in the Poets & Writers Directory.