when bars were bars

thick

with

smoke

one rough man stood with scuffed work shoes

resting on the brass rail

picking whole raw onions

from a soup bowl on the bar

white

beneath peeled

thin skin

eating onions like apples

with salt and pepper

smeared with thick yellow butter

fat with flavor

biting into his second onion

before taking another bite

grinning before swallowing

he says 

gimme a kiss