One couldn’t see through the glass doors,
the glass being frosted and endowed
with fruit and flowers, but the odours
of cooking seeped through and the bowed
figures of aunts bent on their task,
positioning spoons, plates, cast shadows
against the panes, humped and grotesque,
like kindly, harmless Quasimodos.
Unlikely loves! Like Stevie Smith’s
lion aunt who gave her the lion’s share,
my aunts, great-aunts, who always came
in twos, the way fruit and flowers pair,
if love was the dish, ladled out rice with
barberries, cumin, then called my name.