By: Samantha Melamed
i.
Amid fields of the
gorgeous purple upon
Iranian soil in a
dry, dry heat,
calloused hands
under bent backs
pluck the stigmata
of the crocus in its
bloom that one
rare week.
ii.
How I’d be so
lucky to come across
the sprig of the
spice, or its bottled
potion, with a note
hugging its neck
under rawhide
string: Drink
me and you’ll
be happy. I
hadn’t known
the meaning of
the word in so, so
long. So I bathed
in mare’s milk, saffron-
steeped, before
seeing you. Then I
wore it on my lips.
iii.
From my sojourn, I
can see a Temple
atop a mountain—
where a huddled
group of bald monks
glaze their manuscripts
with a punch of
its radiation, a
shrilling luster.
iv.
The same kick of
color that will cry
bright, flamboyant
hubris because it
flares starkly and
heretically in four hundred
years. We mustn’t
eat such passion, but
if you’re of affluence
and elegance, it can
cure all ailments, so
long as you seek its promise.
v.
When the plagued
lay putrid and dead
in piles along nooks where
street meets sidewalk
rings of roses spot their
flesh. Like hay, it’s spread
upon the grounds of
Rome to perfume the
public. The spice is drunk
to stay alive.
vi.
And so, I pass it
on to you—it could
mean joy, it could
mean pleasure—
and either way it
works when I feel
you: stiff, bulging, and
then bursting inside
of me, like I
consume you too in
the act.
I eat it , now, to
remember
to remember.
"The poem follows saffron as it traverses the world and human history— the intersection of food and value, and my own identity through it all"
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