Arts for the 21st Century

Salt

When a mood shifts quickly,

happens swiftly like when

your car signals you need

 

a change of oil. The feeling

like warm swampy lava

lights in a bar in North Devon

 

where an embryo swirls

in a wrong yellow. And    

you hear Rilke say: “You

 

must change your life.” He,

gazing on Apollo’s marbled

glow. The God of poetics

 

made stone heavy and still.

Lest you, too, become a pillar

of salt, like when walking

 

out of sea’s sodium-soaked net,

floating memories dizzy-ing

you, to pull you back under.