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.