Salt

Salt Flats © joanneli

paper

like that torn
too close to the fire piece that no one notices

I crinkle and curl up
turning light brown and smooth around my edges

bright embers
lava bright in the pinched darkness
dying to ethereal grayish smokes

to the sky

reaching to the sky…

at the bottom
the silt’s silt

smooth
through my fingers

over my tongue
tasting the ocean’s essence brine
back of my throat
choking on the raw bouquet

I swallow

looking only to the next

the other
this tomorrow I can never seem to catch up to
or with
to be beside

lost in right now
where everything seems fine
where every day
plants each foot in front of the next
where maybe, just maybe things are fine

just like I need it to be
so that I can make sense

in all that no one expected

with no more words
where few
existed