Spicery

A mind’s-length plot with thought was sown
in secrecy, but it has grown
Into—

Exotic spices, with strange faces
From having looked on distant places.
Gum Arabic, from the veins
Of noonday genii in heat-drunk lands
Or the hard-to-come-by foot
Of white-centred anise-root.
Baskets crammed with saffron wands—
Nutmegs jostle, hearty oaves,
Embarrassing the comely cloves—
From far lands they bear away
Coriander, caraway.

Names whose iteration bear
Parceled gusts of foreign air
Subtleties but half revealed
To the importuning field—
As within a woman’s mind
Broods one half of humankind.