Woman in Dark Colors

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 light.