Bring me your pain, love. Spread
it out like fine rugs, silk sashes,
warm eggs, cinnamon
and cloves in burlap sacks.
In the first lines of the poem, the speaker establishes that she is addressing someone she loves. Despite the authority in the command being given, the tone of this stanza is tender because the speaker compares her lover's pain to beautiful things. It is not often that pain is characterized in a positive way, and here, Bass describes pain in terms of fine materials, comfort food, and aromatic spices. All of the readers senses are engaged with this description: one can see the beautiful rugs, feel and hear the silk sashes, smell and taste the eggs and the spices, and feel the rough material of burlap. "Basket of Figs" uses this sensory engagement to later evoke an erotic tone.
That hard nugget of pain, I would suck it,
cradling it on my tongue like the slick
seed of pomegranate.
Here, Bass evokes the acts of eating and having sex. Both involve sensory and bodily pleasures. If a person sucks on a piece of food, the intention is to savor it until it softens. This is what the speaker does with her lover's "hard nugget of pain." The sibilance of "suck," "slick," and "seed" also creates an erotic sense. Considering that this poem is written by a lesbian poet, and the entire collection was honored with a Lambda Literary Award (marking it as an important LGBTQ work), "Basket of Figs" evokes sex between women. The "nugget" and the "seed of pomegranate" represent female anatomy, and this entire quote depicts a loving relationship between women.
I would lift it
tenderly, as a great animal might
carry a small one in the private
cave of the mouth.
In the final stanza of the poem, the speaker tells her partner that she would lift her pain and carry it in her mouth the way a large animal carries a smaller one. The word "tenderly" specifies this image as a loving one despite the possibility of danger. Without this word, the image could suggest a predator-prey dynamic. Rather than be a source of danger, however, "the private / cave of the mouth" is a safe place of care and support. As done earlier in the poem, Bass specifically evokes female anatomy and a loving relationship between women. Here, this is done with the mention of the cave, which is a place of shelter comparable to a womb even though it is used to describe a mouth.
