Victoria Annotates Ondaatje's "The Cinnamon Peeler"

"The Cinnamon Peeler." [Emphasizes the word "cinnamon," and says it quicker.]

"If I were a cinnamon peeler / I would ride your bed" [Emphasis on "ride" and "bed"]

"and leave the yellow bark dust / on your pillow."

Pause

"Your breasts and shoulders would reek" [Emphasis on "breasts," "shoulders," and "reek." Says the word "reek" a bit louder with a harsher sharpness to it, especially the "k" sound at the end of reek.]

Pause

"you could never walk through markets / without the profession of my fingers / floating over you." [Prolonged s sounds]

Pause

"The blind would / stumble certain of whom they approached"

Pause

"though you might bathe / under rain gutters, monsoon."

Pause

"Here on the upper thigh / at this smooth pasture / neighbour to your hair" [Emphasizes the words "thigh" and "hair," drawing out the length of their pronunciation.]

Pause

"or the crease / that cuts your back. / This ankle." [Prolonged "s" sounds again. The k in back is said in a sharper more commanding way.]

Pause

"You will be known among strangers / as the cinnamon peeler's wife." [Emphasizes the "f" in wife, with a drop in pitch.]

Longer Pause. It's almost like break in the narrative.

"I could hardly glance at you / before marriage / never touch you / - your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers." [Slight increase in tempo, especially when he says "I could hardly glance at you."]

Pause

"I buried my hands / in saffron," [Slight increase in tempo.]

Slight breath between "saffron" and "disguised"

"disguised them / over smoking tar, / helped the honey gatherers …" [Slight increase in tempo.]

Pause

"When we swam once / I touched you in water / and our bodies remained free, / you could hold me and be blind of smell." [An increase in the speed of how these lines are performed.]

Pause

"You climbed the bank and said"

Slight breath between "said" and "this"

"this is how you touch other women / the grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter." [Voice caught a bit when saying "other."]

Pause

"And you searched your arms / for the missing perfume"

Pause

"and knew" [Emphasis on "knew," and draws out the pronunciation of it.]

Pause

"what good is it"

Pause

"to be the lime burner's daughter"

Pause

"left with no trace"

Pause

"as if not spoken to in the act of love" [Love is spoken as though it has an f sound in it, similar to the pronunciation of wife.]

Pause

"as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar." [Draws out saying the word "scar."]

Pause

"You touched / your belly to my hands"

Pause

"in the dry air and said / I am the cinnamon / peeler's wife." [Emphasizes the "f" in wife, with a drop in pitch.]

Pause

"Smell me." [Spoken with a different tone than the rest of the poem.]