Desert traders dealing in cinnamon inflated their profits
By claiming the rolled bark was twigs from the nests of firebirds, fifty feet up trees
And extremely dangerous to acquire.
I keep thinking of the edges of maps with the unknown marked by a warning:
Here there be dragons.
I wonder if there had been fables for all the flavors,
Maybe we would have just stayed home.

Saffron: The whiskers of a manticore.
Cardamom: powdered tears of ancient basilisks.
Don't get me STARTED on vanilla “beans.”
Allspice is guarded by blind moles the size of Buicks, curry plants are the favored
Horticultural decoration of sphinxes, ginger could have been renamed mandrakes,
Cloves are the feather pinions of cockatrices, rosemary is jealously hoarded
By holy warriors who use it to fend off evil spirits. 

The ancients were wrong: the acid spit of Cerberus
Breeds not nightshade, but cilantro.
Parsley blooms from the pages of indexed love letters, left in dusty attics
For a minimum of 7 years, nutmeg grows like mold on tombstones
But only in deconsecrated graveyards. Basil clings to the sides of cliffs in the outback,
Lemongrass is used as snorkels for leviathans, harvesting turmeric wrong
Could curse you to endless pursuit by overly amorous mummies.
Peppercorn can only be pulled with tweezers from giant carnivorous lilies,
Cumin leaves only grow in noxious swamps and the smell attracts mosquitoes so big,
You will lose all faith in the existence of a benevolent creator.

Some spices have to be bartered from oni in exchange for American whiskey,
Mustard is dried algae found only on the shells of immense crabs whose only natural
Predators are kraken, fennel makes a sound similar to cold laughter when picked
From Dark woods on Moonless Nights, tarragon grows only on those petrified by gorgons,
Garlic salt is actually what is left after a chupacabra drains a goat.

Chili pods hang off calderas of literal volcanos, some must be hauled from the magma itself,
Chives grow like hair on the heads of trolls,
Mint must be prayed over by left-handed redheads for 13 hours straight
Or it will be incredibly poisonous, and oregano must be plucked
From the undersides of oliphants.

A better story than ‘Our probably spoiled food
Is bland, let’s wipe out an island so we don’t have to buy spices from India
While sticking it to Portugal at the same time!’ A more entertaining tale
With monsters that don’t look like us.

R. Thursday (they/she) is an educator, writer, gamer, and all around nerd. When not subverting middle school Language Arts/Social Studies curriculum for the purposes of empowering radically empathic citizens, they can be found reading, playing video games, cooking the spiciest version of any given dish, or writing poems about gender, anxiety, vampires, superheroes or all of the above. Their work has been featured in The Poet's Haven, Eye to the Telescope, Luna Station Quarterly, Star*Line, Vulture Bones Magazine, and The First Line, among other fine publications.They live in South King County, Washington.