Woman in Black Colors

[Eric Ashford]

She cooks fish and rice,
her unfolded hips
pushing all into place.
The marl of her hands
turns bowls of smoke
Into oils and aromas,
lemon and butter.

I won’t get to eat the spiced Mackerel,
but I imagine its glazed head laid
in a tabby cat’s saucer.
I think of small-boned piquant desires,
the lick of her fingers,
the coral curl of her tongue
as If she were a cat and I
a fish in her dish.

She wears dark clothes, a peasant garb,
black skirts below her knees,
a lace shawl when she goes to church.
She is Greek, a Turk
an Albanian. She is an Etruscan vineyard
for orphans. A mother to a lover.
Her gourd is full and spilling.
In her hair black horses leap,
a few stout gray mares
amidst the mane.
Tides turn and swirl
through turtle-shell combs.

She’s not a disciple of pretty;
always a womb-shaper for wayward strays.
She is earthenware to hold my hungers.
These words are just terracotta fragments;
what she is, is a pot for evening honey
a rustic oven for provincial passions.

She will dance a stamping dance
In any cobbled square
or kneel, capable arms
grinding the fruits of the sun
upon a stone.
Apart from Holy Days,
she works at a grocery store.
There she creates grape-filled,
sunbaked pastries
for those in need of the olive yield
of her dark clothed light.