Spent this life sipping
warm salt water
in drops, only
warm salt water
and only in drips and
drops,
yet am expected
to taste sweetness
easily and reject
the only taste
I’ve ever known
at once, with no thought
as to how all those
dribs and drabs of salt
may have burned
my ability to taste
anything else. You do
not understand how
oceanic it is in here,
how such trickling
pleasantry and joy
disappear into
that sea with no
trace; meanwhile
warm salt comes
relentlessly, in bits and
blips, filling, spilling.
Spend a life sipping
those and see
what happens when
another flavor offers itself
to your tongue. See how
it feels to understand that
what you are meant to love
cannot touch you now.
See how you cry then:
it won’t even
feel like a loss as you
sip the drops,
as you shrug off
the suggestion
that there could be
anything else for you
but the sip and the
slipping away.
July 27th, 2017 at 3:41 pm
Great symbolism. Again, the fertility of your mind always astounds me. It’s also hard for us who spent the first half of life cherishing the sweet and denying that salt is what gives depth and value to life and almost too late finally accepting the balance that brings peace.