The following stanza the poem increasingly intense in the first line of the stanza when the speaker describes parts of a woman’s body that would smell of cinnamon dust. The cinnamon would leave a smell that would show that the woman is his wife even when she left the house. The speaker uses two images of water to show that no matter what she baths in she could never get rid of the scent. While the speaker starts out discussing the potent scent of cinnamon, it is clear through his erotic descriptions that are within the context of the poem, cinnamon is a symbol for sexual desire.
The third stanza of the poem becomes more erotic. When the second stanza described the woman’s “breasts and shoulders,” now the speaker has moved on to moving lower on the woman’s body. Discussing more areas of the body that his cinnamon scent could be. The speaker mentions the woman’s thigh. The words “smooth pasture” increase the eroticism of the speaker’s statement because it brings attention to the smooth texture of a woman’s skin. Smooth skin is another way to show eroticism. In the third line, the speaker gives one of the most graphic descriptions in the entire poem: “neighbor to your hair.” Although hair could normally mean the hair on the woman’s head, however since the speaker is talking the woman’s thigh it cannot be about the hair on her head. Thus the speaker is talking about the hair near the woman’s upper thigh, which is identified as the woman’s pubic hair. This reference is incredibly sexual, since he discusses the most intimate place of the woman’s body, but the speaker only lingers here for a moment. The speaker moves on to the next body part, the woman’s back.
The fourth stanza the poem changes tone. Up until now the poem has been about a hypothetical meeting. Now it switches to the description of the couple’s actual past. As he states in the first line of the poem, the speaker is not a cinnamon peeler. The speaker’s loves his wife very much. The poet uses the hypothetical examples of the cinnamon peeler for a reason. He wants to emphasize his desire to his wife, when they were dating, in a symbolic sense. Since the mark of his desire is influential, which is cinnamon, the speaker must take further caution to hide the scent of this desire. Normally to hide is desire he would not look or touch his wife but since his scent of cinnamon is so strong he has to hide his desire beyond not looking at or touching his beloved.
The next stanza the speaker has talks about the hypothetical cinnamon peeler and his wife making love. The speaker talks about how he couldn’t even look or touch his beloved while they were dating. Now the speaker talks about his experience making love to his beloved, when they were dating. The speaker remembers a day during his marriage when he and his wife went swimming together. The speaker says when they were both in the water, “you could hold me and be blind of smell.” Since they do not have to hide their affections anymore since they are married.
The seventh stanza is very short it only has two words “and knew.” Even though it is short, it is a powerful stanza. In this small stanza it implies that the wife is having an epiphany that is discussed in the next stanza. The pause before and after “and knew” slows the poem down, as if the wife is thinking. The speaker’s wife is continuing both hypothetical situations. The hypothetical situation is a married couple, role-playing.
She says it’s pointless to be without a scent like the lime burner’s daughter is. To be otherwise, would be like she was "not spoken to in the act of love" or as if she was "wounded without the pleasure of a scar." She would rather be marked with the scent of her husband’s desire. Yet, within the context of the poem, even a wound can be a pleasurable experience if it leaves a mark, as the cinnamon peeler leaves a mark on his wife. She suggests that the lack of strong desire between a couple is the equivalent of mechanical lovemaking without communication.
The last stanza brings both hypothetical situations together. The speaker’s wife offers her body to her husband. The speaker focuses on a part of the woman's body, her belly. The speaker’s wife closes the poem by going along with the fantasy that her husband made in the beginning of being the cinnamon’s wife. She makes herself as his wife and tells her husband: “Smell me.” So when the speaker’s wife asks him to smell her. The wife is asking him to desire her. This married couple is remembering their passion for each other, by looking back on past memories and using a role-playing game where the speaker becomes a cinnamon peeler, and his wife becomes the cinnamon peeler's wife.
