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Return to Cloves and Cinnamon

Jan Ball


Pomegranates were never enough for you
so I bought mangoes and papayas
inverting the orange mango flesh
into a lattice of three-dimensional cubes
for your breakfast, squeezing limejuice on top,
but you complained when, piercing the fruit with your fork,
you squirted juice on your morning paper.

During the day, after you left for work,
I scooped papaya seeds like tiny eyes
and set them aside to tenderize the dinnerbeef.
Later, I filled the halves with the tenderized meat
then baked them in the oven at 350,
Caribbean style.
The aromatic fragrances clung to the living room walls
and glittered, condensed, on the brittle kitchen windows,
sparkling like contact lenses as the sun set.
I sat on the living room sofa waiting for you
to come home from work,
twiddling my hair, reading PEOPLE magazine.

Where are you now?
The somber moon rises yellow
in a bruised and purple sky,
and I sit alone with the fragrance
of cloves and cinnamon.



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