Essay with a Grain of Salt
Salt on black silk
are the stars,
and legendarily
slick crystals
line the red-dark
halls of the underworld,
and when the spreader grinds by
in a white-out, you breathe it
down on your tongue
invisibly, and even dissolved
darkly in dark waves
it will burn a wound.
**
Deer and other
eaters of leaves
are drawn to salt licks,
whereas carnivores (blood is enough)
don’t seek it. As for us,
our bodies hold a good
half-pound of salt,
though we are mostly
tasteless to ourselves —
unless, say, you bite your lip,
or in some teary, moonlit theater
of balked passion
(alas, I’ve done this) kiss
your own damp wrist.
**
John Evelyn oddly
called newfangled
New World sugar
Indian salt — and yet
taste test
a single white
crystal of either on the tip
of your finger. That first
tiny instant —
sting or sweet?
**
No ant, no rot
dares its white plain.
Microbes that touch
its sheer thirst:
dust. Everyone
knows by now the salary
we sweat for is, at root,
salt money,
but even joy’s grape
contains a trace, never mind
the wine-dark sea, and surely
you can taste on a warm
brow or lip
the work or fever
or whatever whatever
we want from each other.
**
Seeing my yearning,
grandma would say
Do you know
how to catch a bird?
(her riddle
older than Evelyn) —
Put salt on its tail.
**
Salt on black silk
are the stars.
There are,
let us not forget,
white fires.
