Salt
Liz Tilton
- 36 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Salt
Liz Tilton
About This Book
"A clear, seemingly effortless voice and a special curiosity animate the world Liz Tilton gives us in Salt. And it is a world, ranging from domestic lifeāloose change, gardening, the intricacies of loveāto manatees and the governor of Texas. Discoveries abound. Salt is smart, subtle, and essential." āDon Bogen
"Never coy or mincing, Liz Tilton's poems burst open our doors to swagger forth with announcements on their lips, announcements that promise a world that is at once familiar with the 'houseguests or in-laws' who threaten to live in our basements (and whose approach is denied), and yet refuses total fidelity to realism, as the speaker continues to rise above us, a 'cowgirl / hovering above the horehound ground, / leather holsters strapped with a big buckle, / helium riding high on [her] hips.' The bold, buoyant poems of Salt shimmy 'up to the mike stand' to sing our heats in forward and reverse." āCate Marvin
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salt sings, the skin
of the salt mines
sings
with a mouth smothered
by the earth.
āPablo Neruda, āOde to Saltā
fills it with opera, and writes me a note.
āSing it,ā he says, but even the river
coats the pen again, cups my chin,
then inks my mouth into a perfect oval
on an opposite shore. A river of voices
floods me, reaches for a high note, pulls it down,
stones, then lets it bubble up, heavier
with the weight of water. Soon, Iām orchestrating
the low tones too long, enjoy their rumbling
in my body, annoying the composer
with his laden quill. I lick the sticky silence
from my lips and taste where the music was.
the cottonwood shade. It teases the limestone
like a loverās feather. It doesnāt promise
beside me to bathe his blistered feet,
his single painted nail in the roaring springs.
aqua, bony. I canāt look up. I lean toward
the cool water, his opened canvas bag, watch him
The scent tickles me, it rallies the clouds, wakes
the scorpions into flicking their tails
for a dripping slice. He wipes his fingers
across the Vishnu Schist. Petroglyphs shift.
shadows, hiss against the scorching rocks.
If I could move, I would follow.
on purple, and catch myself
at the canvas edge. My boots are covered
in morning orchid. Dawn hasnā...