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Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology The Limits of Imagination the Down in the Dirt January - April 2024 issues collection book		get the 422 page January - April 2024 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Salt

Daniel Christensen

Mornings are bone bright and raw,
Gut aching a lighthouse beacon,
Rotating in pea soup fog,

Memories flickering from some piecemeal vault
In this segmented fuck brain
That’s always
Recalling
In geomorphic shapes,
Like some scribe cleric
Bent over a tome
Scrawling days into cuneiform:

Warm pretzel thick as cord
In my child’s hands,
Sharp bullion bricks of salt
Embedded in the surface morass,

Sliding the scale
Into a navy blue blanket
Pulled overhead,
While the hunger that was wearing my father
Searches the room for something to sell,
My toes cold and aching,
All emotion somehow shoved into them
With panic pencil lead,

Flickering lateral dimensions
Into the gavel force wind
Mining holes through the particle board walls
Nobody with a couple grand for rent chooses,
Tornado walking down the street ten feet away,
God twirling a baton
On some cheap wine sink holiday parade,

Angle rises ninety degrees
Into my fingers turning her ivory soft chin
Into my mouth,
Lowered gently as a childs
To the holy water stoup,

Lightning struck tabby I discover
On a wet paint morning, before school
I toe nudge into a rigor mortis
Dorsal spiral,
Eyes and mouth frozen
Into a prehistoric exhibit rictus,

Dad’s beard stubble against my face
As he crouches under the table
Trying to shield me
From the demons in his arm,

Warm tap cervesa
And home rolled autumn dry tobacco
On the breath of a girl in a Juarez bordello,
Whose nipples are a millimeter darker
Than her coffee ground breast,

A napalm hollow point bloom in my chest
While I cough low tatters of prayers
Through the salt tears
Under the shit pitiless physics
Of a moonless night David lay dying
With a single vacant eyelid shoved up
By the hospital pillow,
You stupid alcoholic fuck,
I love you

And a little respite I’ll snatch,
From your devil’s cavalcade of recollections.

Lou’s sad smiles
Touch her eyes like God in a
Lull of music,
I’d strangle Christ in the bower
To fill you with a mote
Of how fucking beautiful you are,

And her laughter is black earth
And roots poking their white tails
Through the dust cathedral
Of my shit kicked heart,
That aches on a good day,
Throwing up a signal flare
Into all these mute seas
I’ve held,
Until nothing moves on the surface
But loam,
Drifting across the quiet house,

And when she cries, I remember
Rain
I ran through, to embrace
Everything, or lift a powerless palm
To quell,
Before I raise my face and drink
And know,
There are things so much greater
Than the wild calculus of my thoughts,
So much deeper than anything
I’ve ever known,

Let her fill me with pain and adoration,
Lust and warmth and intimate wonder,
My ears and eyes trace constellations
About her absolute everything,
That comprises this incredible woman,

I see you in
Your weary fires,
Crackling like knuckles
Over the fists of cunts
And heart vacant cowards
That couldn’t break you,

Let the river run over me,
Until I am driftwood and homebound,
Less than the weight
Of a patchwork memorial
Under the fresh pink burn
Of liquid sun,
Just let any road carry me to you

When I was too young to remember,
I remember an electrical fire
Walking up the wall in sparks,
Slathering the ceiling
In big tongues of flame,
Fervent arms raised
In orange black proselytizations,

And I remember talking to it,
Some curious new friend,

And I remember forgetting
Everything about it,
Until dreams poured through
My half sleep
In strident bursts
Of fevered recollection,

And I wake thinking of you,
My magnetic North Star

Memory
Is like salt
Poured into boiling water,
Until salt shadows
On the surface patina
Are all that remain

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