The salt you left behind, came back without.

Aspirin-clouds. Lion-mouths. The flower. The root.

 

The bright cry of a christened head.

Every ankle on earth. Every wellington boot.

 

What it’s like to make a rainbow.

The moon.

 

What it’s like to fall out of the world.

The moon.

 

Whiskey. River-weeds. Oil. Wine.

The rolling swivel of a halibut’s eye,

 

the freckled sunrise on the belly of a trout.

How the brain sparks. The taste of skin,

 

that line from eye to throat. Whether mermaids exist.

The peeling belly of every boat.

 

Shipwrecks. Sparrowbeaks.

The moon.

 

Where all the pearls are.

All the drowned bones.

 

How the inside of a cloud tastes.

How it felt to be snow.