The Spice of Life
Skin so smooth and firm
cool to touch, seductive.
Colorful, bright, diverse—
something to love in each of us.
Some, I know are hesitant,
afraid of what we’ll do to you.
Others enjoy us with abandon
savor our tempting aroma, our taste.
Zesty peppers.
Photo: Victoria Slotto
Oh joy! It’s time for dVerse Quadrille Monday. Today’s word to include in a poem of exactly 44 words, excluding title, is PEPPER! Please join us!
Victoria C. Slotto, Author 
A poetic tale to tantalize the taste buds. There’s a restaurant in our area that offers tiny pickled peppers in their salad. Beware your first bite because the liquid squirts down the throat and it can be jolting.
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Super poem, Victoria
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This is delicious. Very well written.
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Clever segue from romance to garden!
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Wonderful layers here… love the way you’ve used diverse, reminiscent of dVerse.
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Ah! That this was about peppers only dawned on me slowly, very nicely worded poem!
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Wonderful! I suspect that these peppers are metaphors for relationships…you never know what you might get!
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Green pepper soup sounds superb!
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I love peppers of all kinds! You sure made me wanting them right now though 😀
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Capsicum any day…add a bunch of indian spices as well!!
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Tempting peppers indeed…
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I like the sweet red peppers, the spicy ones are good to clear the senses.
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I love peppers of all kinds! Vegetables always look so pretty, all arranged and colorful! Love your poem. …for some reason I thought at first you were writing about everyone here at dVerse. We are all diverse, and some are hesitant to join in, while others fling our poems out for the world to see. You eased our minds about what people will say about our poems…everyone here is so nice and encouraging! 🙂
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Love your poem, and love peppers!
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Oh YES! And add some banana peppers, jalapena peppers to these too. Years ago when we had our 15 acres in Iowa, we had a HUGE garden and grew all kinds of different peppers 🙂 I even made a green pepper soup 🙂 My husband LOVES the hot ones still! 🙂
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So does mine. I like them in moderation. Green pepper soup? Hmmm.
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I’ll never look at produce the same way… oh, who am I kidding? I’ve never looked at produce any other way… than as the bare ingredients awaiting to rub shoulders and… flavors… in a hot, steamy location. Your poem hints at that and more. Well seasoned!
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So many great food metaphors, heh?
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Food? Oh, um yeah… food!
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Crisp, sweet, spicy. Nice take. The alluring peppers speak.
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We love the spice of life, but oh, what those hot ones do to me. Eeek! That’s really cool, taking it from the pepper’s perspective. Sounds like there should be a character for that on TV, like the California raisins.
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I’ve just got around to reading your Quadrille, Victoria, and it was worth the wait! I love your zesty peppers!
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Oooh you want me long for those peppers!❤️ Scrumptious write 😀
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make*
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They are very hot!
Burns the lips and on the tongue
Colourful words!!
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The POV makes this charming! And for a moment, I had a flashback to a scene in Animal House in the produce department…. 😉
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Uh oh! Smiles.
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I love the innuendo in this!
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Love the use of peppers… especially the spicier kind… we are growing some on he balcony… I hope it will warm us in the winter.
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Your climate should be good for them. We have tried but our vegetable garden gets the full summer sun and I think they like it a bit cooler. Love the hotter kind in soup, myself. And then there’s my husband who uses ghost peppers. Oooh. There’s 2 words from the quadrille prompts.
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Very tempting indeed, so delicious, these spices are life itself, smiles ~
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After eating a red pepper in a Chinese stir fry, when I was too young to know better, I am cautious with peppers that look red, but most of them otherwise are tasty.
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I got one of those hot ones once at a darkly lit Chinese restaurant in an upscale part of Beverly Hills. Thought I would die (of embarrassment). The person who took me there felt so bad she hadn’t warned me.
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Peppers are the spice of life for sure, but green & red bell peppers give me indigestion, especially raw. Now jalapeño, that’s different; can dig them, You rocked & peppered the prompt I say.
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Same as you–the bell peppers can be cruel but the hot ones…worth it.
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Fantastic.
I love the third couplet.
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