Salty

The saltiness of tearsbloodsweat
and down there where it can be warm
and wet and welcoming (not always, though,
not everyone) is why we're drawn to oceans,
that and more. The sound of waves and children
playing gets mixed up with shrieking birds
and radios, the sun-hot lusty words exchanged
between the lovers sitting on their blankets
looking out to the horizon where dreams
of something more can hover out of sight, but just.
As a child I thought the swirling sand I saw in water
was its salt but now I know the tastiness in oceans
is invisible. So it is with life, the best can be unseen,
unknown, pressed down, relaxed into suspended
animation until the day it wakens and can't help
but ooze out to the surface. Then tears of joy will flow,
the blush of blood will rise into the face
(and elsewhere, suddenly) the sweatiness of skin
and friction, and the smell, the smell of seas
that carry those in love out to the line where
earth and heaven meet and then beyond.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014