Jenne R. Andrews: Calabrian Garlic
.
In her window, a basket of garlic reaching for the sun.
She broke off one of its fat cloves and took the knife
.
to it, using the blade’s flat to mash the nub open;
then she peeled off the papery rind and there it was,
.
sending its quartered objections into the air,
disempowered and redolent.
.
I sat back in the shadows with my love, her son Pepe;
we sipped Latte di Mandorla and watched Mama
.
in her cooking dance: how she carefully took a knuckle
from butcher paper, sliding it into a boiling pot,
.
mincing fresh basil, crushing pomodori for the sauce.
We kissed, and longing surged in us and his tongue
.
was as tensile and searching as the garlic’s green
and inquiring foot, and I dared not touch the tendrils
.
of his desire then. But later, spent and laughing after dinner,
I kissed again his garlicky mouth, and much later, we wept
.
briny tears of rapture, rising to walk the edge of paradise,
the lolling Calabrian phosphor on the Strait of Messina.
.
I saw something arc through the air, and he said
it was the pesce spada, swordfish in rising-moon ardor.
.
I said within myself, with my poet’s heart, thinking
of Homer’s stunned walk in this very place,
.
That is Scylla herself, exulting in the tide that forces
garlic-stricken lovers into each other’s arms at all hours.
.
Soon I boarded a train north, away from Mama, Papa
and the babies lolling in everyone’s arms at dusk
.
in the kitchen; many years later, there is no trace
of them now, not even anything legible in a book
.
of names, as if I had conjured all of it from thin air,
my indoctrination into a hard, polished love
.
tinted by flash in the pan anger, like the pink
water-laved stones one finds in the surf,
.
la famiglia’s work-weary and serene faces
as we walked the garden.
.
This is what I remember now: all of them cloistered
in simplicity and resolve, like the purposeful garlic
.
in the window basket—sublimely impermanent,
sheathed in undaunted light.
—
copyright 2015 Jenne R. Andrews
Vox Populi 
After some time, I find myself coming back to your fine work here, and find it a satisfying good read, again/ thanx & keep on
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Beautiful poem, Jenne. Garlic works so well as an analogy in your words, a slice of life and memory. 🙂
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haha sarımsak
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