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Salt
a poem about leaving
It is best, after all,
to turn your face for one more look
for you know it must last;
know you must let it burn into your blood
so deeply its memory will encode itself
into the blood of your unborn children.
What good is the turning away
when the future has no face,
no voice to comfort the ear?
What use is a destination
when the only clarity is what you must leave?
It is best, after all, to become
the pillar of salt in the desert
rather than to be cut so by such loss
that you become two people walking
side by side down the same road;
best to let the wind eat at your face
until you blur into one smooth shape,
your ear holding the call of your name
from a far distance, your voice
stricken mute amid so much sand.
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Copyright 2019 Marguerite Floyd all rights reserved
This poem first appeared in Everyone’s Daughter, 2009
