Salt to Make a Sea

 

I cannot hold such emptiness

—the only meaning, the meaning

 

we make & the way time tugs

the body down, the body named

 

bone, named brain, the color

of dust & tremor, the soft meat

 

& the bag it lives in. We beg

from the body; it shivers &

 

spits—we settle for desire, in-

commensurate sorrow, for a life

 

like too much water, shallow & wide,

for enough salt to make a little sea.

 

Renée Ashley, USA (1947 -)

 

from The View from the Body.  Copyright © 2016 by Renée Ashley.  Reprinted by permission of Black Lawrence Press.

 

Source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/90920

 

Poet’s website: http://reneeashley.com/

To buy The View from the Body: https://www.amazon.com/View-Body-Renee-Ashley/dp/1625579551

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