The Cinnamon Peeler

The poem is a lyric: It’s relatively short and reflects the speaker's emotions and desire for the woman. As the poem centers on the speaker and his passion for the woman, it also qualifies as a love poem or an erotic poem, and, because the speaker directly addresses the woman, it's an epistolary poem too. An epistolatory poem contains a direct address from the speaker to someone or something (in this case, the woman), often in the form of a letter.

While the poem doesn’t explicitly mention the speaker’s sex, the contextual background of the poem—the poet and the period of its composition—makes it tough to claim that the speaker is not male. In fact, it’s more likely than not that the speaker is meant to be Ondaatje himself given that he was ending one marriage and entering another at the time of the poem’s writing. His connection to Sri Lanka, with its history of cinnamon production, also serves as a hint in that direction.

The speaker declares, “If I were a cinnamon peeler” (Line 1), immediately revealing that the titular “Cinnamon Peeler” is not literally a cinnamon peeler. The diction—the words used by the speaker—creates an alternate or hypothetical world in which the speaker inhabits a role he does not actually play. The word “were” is a subjunctive verb—a word that links to an imagined state, and Imagination Versus Reality is one of the poem’s key themes. Thus, the tone of the poem is somewhat dreamy. The subjunctive mood continues when the speaker tells the woman, “I would ride your bed” (Line 2). Like “were,” “would” is a subjunctive verb. The imagery (descriptive language used to paint a clear picture for the reader) of the speaker riding the woman’s bed captures a sexual motion, yet the lack of sex proper makes it appropriate to call the image erotic—a less explicit kind of sexual sentiment.

The speaker would “leave the yellow bark dust” (Line 3) on the woman’s pillow. The tone shifts here and becomes almost sweet. It’s as if the man is the tooth fairy, leaving a gift for the woman. Yet the cinnamon dust isn’t a gift but a mark of the speaker’s desire, and The Permanent Mark of Desire is another notable theme of the poem. The dust would totalize the woman’s body. The speaker tells her, “Your breast and shoulders would reek” (Line 5). Adopting a possessive tone, the speaker uses imagery to display how the dust would define the woman and overpower all else. While walking in the market, the woman would feel “the profession of [his] fingers / floating over her” (Lines 6-7). People without sight would “stumble certain of whom they approached” (Line 9). No “rain gutters” or “monsoon” (Line 11) could extinguish the scent. The speaker’s desire for the woman would leave a permanent mark.

In Stanza 3, the speaker adopts the tone of a tour guide. Again using imagery, he leads the reader on a vivid tour of the woman’s body—her “upper thigh” (Line 12), “the crease that cuts [her] back” (Lines 15-16), and her ankle would smell like cinnamon. The cinnamon scent would give her an identity: She’d be “known among strangers / as the cinnamon peeler’s wife” (Lines 17-18). Gender and Identity is another consequential theme, with the woman’s identity dependent on the man, and the man’s identity connected to his profession—a made-up cinnamon peeler.

The tone shifts again when the speaker returns to memories of the woman in earlier days, and bluntly declares, “I could hardly glance at you / before marriage / never touch you” (Lines 19-21). The speaker becomes confessional—he’s admitting something personal. The personal tone continues with the image of the woman’s “keen nosed mother” and “rough brothers” (Line 22). The diction creates a rough, almost coarse image of the woman’s family.

In Lines 23-26, the speaker lists the ways in which he used to try to repress the scent of cinnamon. He uses the scent of cinnamon here (and throughout the poem) as a metaphor—a comparison between two unlike things for dramatic effect—for his desire for the woman and how he had to attempt to hide his desire in their courting days. He uses imagery to show himself burying his hands in saffron (a plant used for spices) and covering them in smoking tar and honey, desperate to hide the evidence of his feelings from the woman and her family. The tone is somewhat hyperbolic (exaggerated or overly dramatic), as the speaker takes considerable pains to hide the cinnamon smell.

In Stanza 5, the speaker begins to narrate a brief story or moment in his and the woman’s past. The speaker and the woman touch while in the water, and the woman is “blind of smell” (Line 30). Continuing his extended metaphor, the speaker here means that his desire for the woman was still hidden—that she could not smell cinnamon. Previously, in Line 11, the speaker said no amount of rain or water could wash away the smell, but in Line 30, being in the water does seem to neutralize the smell. This contradiction doesn’t mean the poem is unsound but instead reflects its fantastical elements—fantasy doesn’t always make sense (though neither does reality). On the other hand, given that the memory of Line 30 happened in the past, the speaker’s mention of “rain” and “monsoon” in Line 11 could be alluding to the fact that, although there were barriers or neutralizers (represented by the water) to his desire in the past, no barrier could prevent his desire in the present.

While the woman has no name, she does have agency. Not smelling cinnamon, she tells the man, “[T]his is how you touch other women / the grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter” (Lines 32-33). Her tone is blunt: She doesn’t want to be like the other women—the people the speaker doesn’t desire. The woman wants his scent, his “perfume” (Line 35)—the evidence of his desire. Love, desire, sex, etc. is supposed to leave a “trace” (Line 39). The speaker uses simile (a comparison featuring a connecting word, usually “like” or “as”) to reinforce the disappointment the woman felt over the absent scent. It’s “as if not spoken to in the act of love / as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar” (Lines 40-41). Love requires words, a wound needs a scar, and desire demands a permanent scent.

The woman demonstrates additional agency when she makes the first move and touches her stomach to the speaker’s hands. The woman is the initiator, and she adopts a bold tone when she states, “I am the cinnamon / peeler’s wife. Smell me” (46). The proud, unabashed final two lines of the poem join three of the poem’s major themes: desire, identity, and imagination. Now that the woman is the cinnamon peeler’s wife, it’s acceptable for him to mark her with his desire. The man’s profession identifies him, and the woman's relationship with the man identifies her. As the speaker isn’t a cinnamon peeler, the reality of the situation remains unclear. The woman’s confident statement may sound like a fantasy. The reader might doubt the woman’s full-throttle reciprocation—perhaps the woman’s full compliance with the speaker’s own desire is just a wish projected onto her, much like the speaker’s imagined occupation.