Shannon & Salt

Paying boons in salt
like the Romans; bombs
of bones barricading, shrinking
wrists, outcries, uncles, whispers -

and such
things;

though as yet unspoken
Shannon speaks in a lonesome
litany, a skylark lurking in
the back of the mind,
yet, I hate to prophesize
that once again I will pay bonds
with salt,

that singing sting
of salt, wounds wandering
away from the body, the thistle
a missile of peace,

and I said I would write a
poem about you, about it,

about
it
all

but words thicken like wet
sand underfoot, clasped wrists
whistling – and this is the sound your
bones make when waltzing
across a floor delicately shrouded in sand,

consider calumny
set aside like an ocean swamped
with undrinkable water,

consider worship
paid in full.