Rock Salt
it can’t be salt, just salt, as the reason
the ocean doesn’t freeze—a reticent fury
or maybe a thrum in the untouchable underbelly,
its capacity to hold its ships as though
they’re tiny replicas in a bottle.
we recall the ocean a certain way,
elusive blue when it’s really more dreamscape
grey and its fat froth silhouettes
the skin like it’s desperate for a touch,
wants to cup it in its sudden curve. and o
when i jump in the Atlantic, i want to be
rock salt, a hollow splash, dissolving into it
dripping nothing but pulse that keeps
vast liquid from freezing, faster
than foxes, fill me full of sharks.
it’s blood we say, it can’t freeze
because of all this blood inside it—
human, bottom-feeder, whale, cosmic
debris and all the matter and boundless
energy that cannot be created or destroyed.
| Charlotte Seley |
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