ADORATEURS DE L’OIGNON
The Holy Trinity of Cajun cooking
father tells me is onions, bell
peppers and celery as he dices,
rattling off oignon poivron céleri,
more faith poured into this pot
than my entire upbringing.
He never was a religious man
but his father’s father’s father was
a Frenchman from Acadia,
finally settled in Louisiana.
I remember these stories, l'accent aigu
roaring in my ears, but never rolling
off my tongue; he didn’t teach me
culture, my eyes burning now
and I can’t tell if it’s more
from sautéing onions or desire
to belong to something
outside of this kitchen.
What else has he kept
me from believing in?
I think of another Frenchman,
Brother François Thomas,
who believed salvation came
from the onion, its cyclic
design containing a triune
godhead: the old,
young, and fluid—its power
to rejuvenate from nothing
more than its root adored.
I want to ask my father
what in our roots made us
Onionists, to peel back layers
generations thick, but his back is toward me
as I fight tears we long ago taught ourselves
not to cry.