ABSTRACT
When read from its inscription on the page, Michael Ondaatje’s poem ‘The Cinnamon Peeler’ insinuates the word ‘If’ to dare you into beginning to imagine a conversation of bodies, conjuring up a conspiracy of rich spice and sweat, intimate physicality, flesh in a private domain. The cinnamon bark dust traces the attendance of one upon another; its settled remnant testifies to a location of human vulnerability at the edge of sleep and dreaming, to persons in the fragility of close proximity. The mark of the dust on the fabric whispers the story of their meeting, a tale of embraces and the sweet syllables of lovers which you, the reader, must reconstruct from the remains.
