Yellow Curry and Peas by Erica Goss
Later you offered me raw fish,
the wild aroma tamed in
rounds of white rice
and later still I watched you
inhale the fragrance behind
our baby’s ear
like an addict going for a fix.
How did it start?
Yellow curry and peas,
the back-breath of garlicky kisses
sugar crystals in the sheets,
earlobes soft as cake,
the armpit in its innocence
ready for the day.
We suffer well now, my cheek
in the crease of your neck,
nose against your throat
where your scent arranges
and rearranges me.
Erica Goss is the Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, CA, and the host of Word to Word, a show about poetry. She is the author of Wild Place and Vibrant Words: Ideas and Inspirations for Poets. Her poems, reviews and articles appear widely. She writes The Third Form for Connotation Press.
Later you offered me raw fish,
the wild aroma tamed in
rounds of white rice
and later still I watched you
inhale the fragrance behind
our baby’s ear
like an addict going for a fix.
How did it start?
Yellow curry and peas,
the back-breath of garlicky kisses
sugar crystals in the sheets,
earlobes soft as cake,
the armpit in its innocence
ready for the day.
We suffer well now, my cheek
in the crease of your neck,
nose against your throat
where your scent arranges
and rearranges me.
Erica Goss is the Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, CA, and the host of Word to Word, a show about poetry. She is the author of Wild Place and Vibrant Words: Ideas and Inspirations for Poets. Her poems, reviews and articles appear widely. She writes The Third Form for Connotation Press.
