To a Red Cabbage


Bulky, unbloodied severed head, 
shrouded in plastic wrap snug 
around leathery purple leaves 
dusky, as if with wintry rime, 

I choose you from an altar 
heaped with apples, turnip, 
squash, and lug you home, 
my heavy, vegetable trophy.

With our longest knife, I slice 
hard-to-open you, expose a pearl— 
your gorgeous geologic rhyme
of amethyst and snow-white swirl. 


Bonnie Bishop lives on the coast north of Boston with her poet-husband, Con Squires. She has a chapbook with Finishing Line Press, O Crocodile (2013), and a book of poems, Local Habitation (2009), through Every Other Thursday Press.