Salt To Make A Sea

By Renée Ashley

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.

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