Salt

By

The tip of my tongue is
ulcered by the salt of olive brine

so that it does not taste the taut
prune of your nipple

or savor the thought
of legs wrapped like branches,

toes like roots as old as time,
though it had only been weeks

and we could not know
shared youth except for how it felt

to tiptoe together, tapping the surface
tension of water into bits,

small seas parting at boot tips
until we tucked into a tent

when the wind picked up,
and the trees rocked like a pelvis

swaying eucalyptus when we came
together, sprayed with sea.


Megan de Matteo