I am salt in a little dish
And you sprinkle me sparingly
On bread torn from the loaf.
I am everywhere in you,
In your lungs absorbing smoke,
In your blood attaching myself to toxins,
In your throat inciting thirst
And I have the pleasure of drinking wine with you.
I am in your very tears,
Carrying away on my back your grief.

Once I was white grains in a little dish,
Grains the chemist mixed to burn through steel,
Or turned to gas that crept across fields
Where even weeds withered.
But you stirred me with your finger and tasted me,
And even so slight a touch made me an herb,
And you set me alight in a censer.
I burned like a rare resin of a desert tree,
The perfume about you in clouds,
Never were you so beautiful and desired,

I enveloped you and nuzzled your neck,
And although I built a shrine to grief,
Where we left a flame dancing on a dish of oil,
I caught you up in my cloud
And this time, oh this time,
You joined your brothers and sister
Around the same table at supper,
And your mother’s heart melted
And she baked apples with cinnamon and sugar.
At eleven your blood sang
And you were a heroine who never slept.
Now I surround you like gentle arms
And caress you as lightly as swan’s down.
As long as I burn
You shall breathe the dew of roses,
The calla lily will be your throne,
And cyclamen your shade.

February 13th, 2007