This is a piece I have been working on. . . It is built around the metaphor
of Salt, salt being a metaphor for pain and healing. I am working on the
pain part -- the healing comes later. This is all I have so far.

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Salt
by Quentin Johnson

"The salt inside my body ruins everyone I come close to
my hands are hardly holding up my head
oh, i'm so tired of looking at my feet
and all the secrets that I keep" -- Jann Arden, "Hanging by a Thread"

I.

The Salt Inside


     The salt inside
destroys all hope. Now hope is gone:
     the salt inside
resides instead. Undiluted,
unbudged by whispered sacred songs.
Mocking Light -- Gleams to it are drawn!
     The salt inside.

II.

Ode to a Boy I Once Loved:  Before
to David Bosinger


when sitting, passing goodbyes, you walked in
knowing not what you sought, I thought
I could give direction.
I remembered days of ancient Greece:
The youth seeking out the older for knowledge.
What a mistake.

when walking through your life and mine
ignoring the beauty of well-formed lips
pink and thirsty -- the want to offer mine to drink.
Ignoring the beauty of a profile so striking and hair
curly, tight, like your body, like your movements, nervous
and fighting it, singing reckless on an inner-city bus
the look of people around, your need for attention, although your hair,
your profile, so stiking, too striking, didn't need to call
attention to itself, the siren's song installed.
I thought I could be hands off.
What a mistake.

when my hands, fire-filled, reached for your body
knowing your eyes were elsewhere, reaching.
I thought I could win those eyes and that look
of interest, that look that said, "I want to possess your Beauty."
I wanted your's.
Cupped in my hands: swollen and throbbing.
Swallowed in my mouth: warm and wanted.
I checked your eyes for that validating look.
Begging, "See me. See all that I am. See my desire for you.
See the Beauty in me."
You claimed an ancient scholarhood.
I believed you.
What a mistake.

when we wandered through the park like animals
wild and free, freed from ourselves
freed from the roles we desired to play
changed through my possessing one secret of your joy.
Touching trees made new, feeling ridges rough --
a more paganistic learning drunk with feeling: love and purity
youth and sweetness, such sweetness, sweetness you had never felt --
sweetness I thought you should feel.
I showed you a spot lined with my youth
pointed out the sweetness of it all, a sweetness I hoped
would move between us like a boot, broken in, rippled
from knowledge of knowing how a foot would bend when moved
in this direction or that.
I elected to play Whitman. I elected to play Alger.
I elected to love you as I felt loving should be wrought.
What a mistake.

when we had that conversation
my head thick with fuzz
thick with a man's passion spilling over his gripped fist
sucking down the youth's seed
thinking, perhaps, love grows from the stomach
the seeds opening their shells, taking root, green shoots easing
open into a fertile land, taking over my heart, spreading to your's . . .
You said you didn't love me. I was just your friend.
My throat still swallowed, hoping something would catch
something I could show you that would prove my worthiness
my adoration my love my respect my desire: swallowing.
What a mistake.


That seed grew.
It made a Salt tree.
My lips white-lined
my heart stinging and shrinking
like a slug, dissolving
into nothing but mucus.
It tried to re-generate
but the tree grew, kudzu-like. My heart,
awashed with salt crystals, hardened into marble.
I made you leave.
And then called you back.
Ignoring my newest tree
born from your seed.
That was the mistake.