If I were a cinnamon peeler
And leave the yellow bark dust
Your breasts and shoulders would reek
You could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
under rain gutters, monsoon.
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.
I could hardly glance at you
--your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
in saffron, disguised them
helped the honey gatherers...
I touched you in the water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
you climbed the bank and said
this is how you touch other women
the grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
to be the lime burner's daughter
as if not spoken to in the act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.