Ode to the Tiniest Dessert Spoon in All Creation by Karen An-Hwei Lee

Ode to the Tiniest Dessert Spoon in All Creation

by Karen An-Hwei Lee

In a new translator’s version of Genesis, there’s no Adam.

No serpent. In paradise, I don’t bleed. Fig leaf-free girl,

dear God, I say as we converse fluently without tongues,

joined as two spice-drenched beloveds in a song of songs,

could we please ask the gardener to plant a pomegranate grove

by a stand of non-fruiting olive cultivars, which don’t bloom

and aren’t so messy? Honey, I am the gardener, says God,

whose anthropomorphic footfalls caress the afternoon cool.

Wolves in our botanical garden ask nothing of any human,

eyes the hue of clementines plucked green off a young tree,

one of five in my orchard, per telltale ringless left finger:

fig, clementine, kumquat, oroblanco, and lemon. If I reside

in paradise, then I get to eat all the fruit I want, all day long.

No problem, says God, who calls me a little pouch of myrrh.

An eagle locks eyes with mine. A dove by the pool adores

the wolves as she coos, gold-amber, one stone’s throw away.

Each one carries a scent: snowy owls of shuttered skies, elk,

bobcats, melanin-rich skin of a feckless human. In paradise,

wolves and doves coexist. Once, a clementine sat forgotten

in my purse until it acquired the spots of a leopard. A world

in a lion’s eye is kohl-lined gold. Aloes and sage carve a path

through a brushy stand of Joshua trees, one which God made

after lightning struck the agave and scrub oak. Joshua trees

are chuppah arches double-wreathed with burrs, scales, fur.

Joshuas aren’t guys, so yucca moths activate their ovaries.

Wolves do not question why a male is missing in paradise.

Yes, yucca moths take care of it. Coyotes do not question

the human. Why I’m not married, why childless, howling,

and whether we’ve reached the century when God invents

a gossamer mousse garnished with absinthe-laced cherries

served in hand-fired ceramic espresso cups, a dessert to taste

together for the first time after we invent a miniature spoon

no larger than a bee hummingbird, tiniest in all creation.

You know I love an ode, especially when they are to things and beings I would never think of to commemorate; see examples on this blog. And I love when people take well-known religious figures and places and do fun things with them; also see examples on this blog. And this poem does both!

Had An-Hwei Lee not already grabbed me, this--In paradise, I do not bleed.--would have made it impossible to leave this poem. First off, yes, exactly. Secondly, what a great way to say No Original Sin, with the build-up of no Adam, no snake, and followed by no fig leaf.

The speaker lets us in on her conversations with God; without Adam, she--an Eve figure--talks directly to God. She tells us wild animals are not interested in harming humans or one another, and again, no men--she can eat however much she likes! We are treated to descriptions of fruit, animals, and plants, as well as my favorite line: [God] calls me a little pouch of myrrh. That seems to me the kind of nickname God would give.

The turn in this poem is introduced by

Coyotes do not question

the human

And lest you think the speaker's examples of questions not asked is heartbreaking, I remind you to look back at the poem. She tells us multiple times that this is paradise. Is she going to be lonely at times? Of course. But even if she sometimes is howling as a consequence of being alone, something is coming to bring her joy--the tiniest dessert spoons and what they are used for.

The fact that the point of the title--the tiniest dessert spoon--does not make it into the poem until it becomes the focus of the last two lines is also appealing to me. Why? Because it is unusual, and what comes before it is so lush. An entire book of poems where the title's subject is not revealed until the end? 70+ pages of the same set-up? Nope. But in this one poem, published in Poetry in December 2018, Karen An-Hwei Lee successfully pulls this off with humor, a bit of sadness, and an incredible amount of stunning imagery.