#saltlake

Salt, don’t be afraid.
The end of the valley is so low ahead
it is already beneath us.
Don’t kiss. Your friend is only your friend
until one of you forgets. Like how the back
acts like its heart doesn’t remember the fingers
that have touched it no matter how many times
they have returned to the first knob of spine.
Salt, you confuse me.
The most lovely part of wanting
is the wildness of it. It is wherever the wild
blueberries grow & we are lost in the blue patches. 
It is crusted in the maple syrup
bark of the oaks holding too many circles
to count. We must ring around what we need
because just call it a ring
& you’ll never promise anything. 
The world is smoke & all glass 
a surface waiting to forgive fire for not touching it
sooner. Here is the salty valley parched
to a sole looking back. Just call it hope.
You ask for eight years of return
but are given a shoulder bone to bite.
The most lovely part of bones
is myth. Here’s your house with all the windows
open. Here’s the brine wind. Here’s everyone
whosever loved anyone trapped in the first
floor kitchen: biting stone counters & crying
about a friend, bruised peach juice, ripened time.
I promise, life is ringing. I promise,
again & again, I want you
on my tongue.

This is the moment when you leave,
it is August again, didn’t the salt freeze
in the spring, didn’t your tongue melt
into me, weren’t bodies made of scorched
mountain tops, burnt lightning beginnings
of the first day in June
 
when you walked across the valley,
whiskey valley, moss smell of nine
years of circles in which you lift
your pen and begin again onto
the same orbit.
 
I remember how we used to think
this city was a grid, baked sun lines
drawing a charcoal tic-tac board
between right neck nook and hips.
 
I don’t know where the x
sits anymore. I remember how the world
felt, wine flushed and tight,
in glued columns, weren’t the gates
unlatched, didn’t we climb the north fence
and pour ourselves through windows,
into beds.
 
I no longer feel your body
for everyone is feeling, falling over
this cherry smashed carpet. 
 
I no longer care
what sound want makes,
 
didn’t this happening end,
didn’t the melting salt
flood our hip walls,
didn’t the city lines blur
of consequence.
 
One of the nice things about wanting
is how you never recall the origin.
 
Wasn’t it the wood carved neck,
wasn’t it your father’s room,
doesn’t it all come down
to dancing and wine, a floor, didn’t you
want me in waves, in smoke, small
brine currents, freely.  
 
Tell me this is the end,
I won’t trust you.
Tell me this is a circle,
I won’t belief your words,
didn’t you want this.