She makes torn shapes above a pot;

and I love to watch how the moon

adds its cool, transparent edge

to her lips. She tests for enough spice,

enough distance, and I watch those

sticks of cinnamon float among

her large, flat spoons.Ah, there could

be a bird flapping out of tall grass

by her sweet oasis, and a man too,

whose breath smells of cedar and dust,

who has come to quench himself,

to listen too to the duet of her spoons

and bracelets. I watch her face

above the steaming pot, above the

milky expanse where I imagine all

her customers, lonely, yet open

to the intimacies of their thirsts,

to their days full of the umber scents

of their longings stirred in well

before dark. Far off, the sounds

of dunes moving under birds’ wings

are the sounds her sighs make

moored above her shimmering liquid.

She sifts ingredients, spoons them in,

and her bracelets slice the air

with a thin marimba music, the kind

you might hear somewhere far off,

as you set your afternoon to the

loneliest bandwidth … She sips

a last spoon, douses the air,

shakes in grains, spice, the green

Formosan leaf … this woman who

calls us in, draws us in with her

skilful, aromatic finesse; who,

like an illusionist, knows what

she can and can’t gain from the

immeasurable edge … this woman

who works in heat that begs

illusion of her, distance of her;

who listens for whatever she can

amongst the soft resolutions

of her bracelets … She blows

now at the fine wisps of steam,

gently, as if she held her lips

to a man’s damp cheek, though

she consoles all of us, who’ve come,

drawn out by the need for tenderness.