Sunday, April 24, 2016

This Little Boat Of Happiness

This little boat of happiness
has a gunwale rimed with salt;
your lacerated hand will feel
the prickle and the fault.

The distiller has a funnel
where sun sparkles on the drip:
if there's joy in pure water,
there's smarting where you grip.

Seawater and blood
are the same in vacillation,
this dissolution followed
by that desalination;

The sea is wide and sad
and full of ions of magnesium,
solute gold enough for princes,
and ions of potassium;

We purify to drink because
we have no other choice,
but it's salt in the water
that gives our tongue a voice.

1 comment:

Dale said...

Jean Morris suggested that this would work better in quatrains, and of course she was right.