Jesus and The Onions

Jesus rides to the vegetable store on his mobility scooter.

He asks the lady for two onions and she puts them in the carrier bag on the back of his chair.

I smile.
How people fall.

He’s not ‘the’ Jesus.
The one from the book and the church.

But he smells strange as I walk past.

Dried blood. Incense. Smoke.

It carries on the breeze.
Tickles my nose.

I leave Jesus and hope he gets a good price for the onions.

The sky is blue today.
My boots are heavy and brown.
I drag them around the path.

How much easier it is to fall.
Weighed down by remembering and confessions.

The policeman looks over his shoulder as I cross the road.
The marks on my neck
Heavy like my boots.

I bang my head on the chiropody clinic window.
There’s nothing wrong with my feet.
But there’s no place left to send me.

I rock on my heels and rub the polish off my fingers.

It is better because there is nothing left to scream for.

Inside it is not mellow. Buttery.
It is hard knots, falling, drowning.

Small stones disappearing in the night.
Our faces getting older.

I try not to catch a glimpse of myself.

In the chiropody room door.
The vegetable shop window.
The mirrors on Jesus’s scooter.

That smell. It comes home with me.

Dried blood. Incense. Smoke.

It is not Jesus.
It is the raw onions weeping in my head.