37: painting salt

in poetry the poet, or whomever has a stick and sand available,
may tell the story of a grain of salt, yes that grain of salt,
that escapee from bubbling water or Tecate beer, which is made for salt
and lemon, or from a bad experience with a chicken doomed
for the grill, the salt grain who days before had words, fightin’
words, with the chip of pepper, who insisted the sun would go
down sooner than the salt grain would admit to, or could admit
to, that grain of salt we’ve been following and that poses
against objects that reminded it of itself, as, in piles or containers
of salt, all salt crystals mirror themselves and, perhaps in poetry
or clattersome, bitter song, comment on the simplicity
of their packed, symmetrical chlorides, voids sodiumfilled
with blue light, and cadmium from the additive iodine, that grain,
that grain so unthought and often forgotten in its numbers
but, like the Aleph, reflects and refracts the infinity of a house,
its windows, it’s windows’ suns, reflects and refracts an infinity
above the ocean and its cool and deadly condensations,
an infinity of faces in that salt grain, the infinities
above us and before us, on that lattice of salt
the smearing cloud, the gray mountain shelf, the fear of falling.

Post a Comment

Your email is never shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*