Unconditional Love
The theme of unconditional love is apparent in "Basket of Figs" in the way that the speaker addresses her lover. By comparing the lover's pain to beautiful, luxurious, and valuable materials and foods, the speaker communicates that she loves every part of her lover, even the parts that most people would try to avoid. Unconditional love is portrayed as an action in the poem; the speaker wants the opportunity to care for her lover by providing a safe space within the relationship. This is particularly apparent in the last two stanzas, where the speaker states that she would suck on her partner's "hard nugget of pain" like a pomegranate seed, and carry it tenderly in her mouth like a large animal carries a smaller animal. For this unconditional love to be realized, both vulnerability and strength are required.
Sensual Celebration
The metaphors for the lover's pain are very sensual; the speaker compares her lover's pain to fine materials, luxurious foods, and valuable jewelry. These metaphors address the reader's senses. For example, the first stanza (which compares the lover's pain to "fine rugs, silk sashes, / warm eggs, cinnamon / and cloves in burlap sacks") engages the visual, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory senses. The reader can easily imagine touching the rugs and sashes, and smelling and tasting the eggs and spices. The poem becomes increasingly erotic as the speaker encourages her lover to bare her most intimate self. The speaker states that she will suck "the hard nugget" of her partner's pain, a description that evokes a sexual act. In this way, Bass celebrates the human body and its capability to express a wide range of emotions. Ultimately, this sensual celebration communicates an insistence on joy and love even amidst pain.
Vulnerability and Surrender
As stated in the theme "Unconditional Love," vulnerability is required for the love between the speaker and her partner to be fully realized. The speaker instructs her lover to "Bring" over her pain, "Spread" it out like fine materials and food, "Show" all of its intricate details, and "Unclasp" it from her body like jewelry. These actions imply a kind of surrender that many people would find challenging. The final image in the poem conveys the sense of danger that some people in relationships may feel. A "great animal" carrying "a small one in the private / cave of the mouth" does not specify the nature of the relationship. For animals, the mouth can represent danger as the site of consumption, but animals also carry their young in their mouths. Humans are capable of hurting each other through the words that they speak, but they are also capable of expressing love through language.
The possibility of danger could prevent people from revealing their most intimate selves within a relationship, but in "Basket of Figs," the speaker encourages her lover to surrender her fear and be vulnerable.
