Salt: A Poem by Madeline Fuller

Her tears slipped under her top lip

They tasted especially salty, like the crisp spray

of his sea adventures

And if she let her tears conjure up all the thoughts of him,

they tasted like black coffee

The kind made in a french press,

with congealed grains

greeting you at the bottom of your mug

Or they tasted like cigarette ash,

like a campfire on its last legs,

or like a nearly frozen Coca-Cola

in the sweltering Brazilian sun

Sometimes they tasted like a quick sip

of Fever Tree tonic water

sans Beefeater gin

Or they tasted like the puff of air that greets your face

when you open a bag of salt and vinegar chips.

If she really focused,

she could make them taste like a ripe dopamine hit.

The kind she would get when her phone pinged:

"hey pup text me when you get home safe"

or "hey dude picked up some groovy things from the grocery store for you"

or "hey mojo i love you"

And sometimes their taste would be angry,

and resentful and dark,

and acutely melancholic,

like soap or cough syrup or blood or black licorice.

They would taste like sharp, prideful, biting words.

The kinds of words that linger like a fresh, flaming sunburn.

Or like his forceful shoves, his delusions of grandeur,

his rageful grey-blue stare.

Or even worse.

Like his seasons of sadness, his recluse from his daughter, and

his violent final earthly act.

This is when she would wipe her cheeks,

her snotty nose,

her upper lip.

And return to the present,

because she knew she needed to.

She would return to the regular old salty tears

and just regular old miss him.