Cravings

 Cravings

And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own

    funeral drest in his shroud.

                                        Walt Whitman

                                          Song of Myself (sect. 48)

Does everyone know what truth is in

what's left when the tide pulls

out and the sun turns

what's left into 

flakes of

salt?

Does everyone know that salt is

stone ground stone throne 

up into gravity 

and too down

into cracks

in the

vista?

And does everyone know the gods

did this and made it so be

-cause salt is all we know: 

burn as it preserves

as it lifts and ling

-ers and shrinks

and makes

wet

the wide and dry tightness 

everyone everyone 

must know who

craves their own

blood how it 

kills as much

as it keeps 

alive