Children from the Onion Fields

Children from the Onion Fields Breech birth; he was here, surrounded by a fluid red morning. We were crying by dusk in a freshly painted church foyer, under sketches of the sacrifice. We lost our mother. Her face strained, crimson against flat pillows and a burnished headboard. We wandered in the mouth of the church in prayer after days and nights with her, planting and feeding. Sometimes we still look into the black night for a piece of her in the dark of the moon when the onions must be pulled and we have reason to cry. —Mattie F. Quesenberry 10 ...