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Your parents leave you with the roots
Of their own lives in your hand,
You who with your own life pulled their life up,
Dirt falling from the onion’s bulb
Back into dirt. Ritual in the morning light
Each generation repeats, muscle
Strong at other’s expense, supple limbs
Fattened on another’s labor, an essence
Grown larger than the body that was your source.
Why must the seed begin inside the blossom?