Spice Trade

Spice Trade
by Timothy Reed

they say I am to voyage
and that explains
the way my roots have been cut
my leaves stripped
my stems tied

I feel myself shrivel from inside
a spice
a grain
a husk

I am pickled, preserved
I breathe ether
in salt, vinegar, water


and the dark, rocking parenthesis around me -
the dull hope that throbs through dying veins

once I die and we make port
perhaps I am the spice the new world lacks