Bitter Salt

No perfume; let me smell of brine,
The bitter salt of bodies torn,
Not silk to wrap this flesh of mine,
But hull-planks lashed till I am worn.

No verse, but waves; no words, but foam.
Lash me, you salt-stung gale, lash hard!
Born proud, I'll bend till pride is loam,
Since like the sea you've left me scarred.

No tenderness — as reefs tear hull,
As keels cut sharp against the wave,
Be rib and mast, let flames annul —
Hold fast the wheel, and steer my grave.

So let the listing masts give way,
Let barnacles devour the wheel;
I broke as storm — now fall to spray,
And I am brine — you crash to feel.

What's left of me when sails are dust,
When helm is crushed and rigging torn?
Not flesh, not will, not even lust —
Just salt that once a name had worn.

And then, to sleep? No — drown in tide,
Where your voice sinks to ocean's floor,
Where wings of hands you loosed to glide,
Are yours, dissolved to salt and shore.