An Embarrassment of Alliums

by Allison Flaherty

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Whistling lips and kitchen cloth flips, and steam rushing out of plump vegetables, lying, doused in frying oil, hissing from the pan.

Conversations about summer corn and the best way to eat an heirloom; an embarrassment of alliums overflows the produce drawer.

Pasta patiently waits for sauce, gurgling with meatballs—rinds of cantaloupes and frothy beer cans line the counter.

Bags of spices from a special shop and perfect cross sections of okra like rubber stamps—clinking cubes of ice in high-ball glasses, and glasses fogging up.

And popcorn from the belly of a heavy-bottomed pot made by my salt lick sweetheart at the end of the night.

And wiry fingers slink around a cage of sticky ribs, pouring yet more liquid love—zealous and attentive.

And slow coffee-sipping mornings with room for seconds and cinnamon kicks. And bread-potato-sausage-runny egg stuff with black pepper that rains the Pompeii plate.

Over breakfast we repeat the crucial refrain: “How did you sleep?” and “What do you want for dinner?”

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Allison Flaherty is an educator and writer living in New Bedford, Massachusetts whose work explores themes ranging from personal and sensual to social and political. When she's not writing or teaching she's seeking, baking, or making delicious vegan treats and eats. Also find her work in Anomaly Poetry's "Cat Ladies Against Fascism" collection or on Substack and Bluesky @allisonish.

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