Food (Symbol)
Food symbolizes the opportunity for pleasure in "Basket of Figs." The speaker compares her partner's pain to different food items, including warm eggs, cinnamon and cloves, a basket of figs, wine, and pomegranate seeds. This comparison of pain to edible things helps the speaker convey that she is willing to take her lover's pain into her own body, digest it, and metabolize it into something different (i.e. love and belonging). Not only is pain compared to edible items, but to foods that are specifically considered delicacies. This means that the speaker savors the opportunity to support her partner. The pleasures brought about by the lover sharing her pain with the speaker are both physical and emotional.
The Mouth (Symbol)
In "Basket of Figs," the mouth is a symbol of female love and care. The speaker compares her lover's pain to fine food and drink (warm eggs, spices, figs, wine, and pomegranates), and promises to take this pain tenderly into her mouth and suck on it. This erotic act not only addresses physical needs, but emotional ones as well. The mouth could represent danger—the way an animal eats its prey or a human uses words to hurt another person—but the speaker assures her lover that "the private / cave" of her mouth is a place of safety.
Fine Clothing and Jewelry (Symbols)
In the poem, clothing and jewelry are metaphors for the lover's pain. They symbolize the way that pain can be intricate and detailed, but also impermanent. In the second stanza, the speaker asks her lover to show her the details of her pain: "the intricate embroidery / on the collar, tiny shell buttons, / the hem stitched the way [she was] taught." In this way, the speaker expresses unconditional love for her partner because she loves every part of this person, including her pain. However, it is stated that it was the lover herself who was taught to stitch the cloth in a way that makes it "almost invisible." This refers to the way the lover presumably hides her pain from the world.
Clothes and jewelry don't have to stay on the body forever. In the third stanza, the speaker tells her lover to "Unclasp" her pain "like jewels." This demonstrates the possibility of choice in how we deal with our pain.
