This next poem is in the voice of salt.
I taught for 22 years at the Institute of American Indian
Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
And I probably worked with native students
from over 200 tribes across the United States.
So there's always a sort of thread of Native culture
that comes up at different points in my poems.
This is called "Salt Song."
"Zunis make shrines on the way to a lake where I emerge.
And me walks gather me out of pools along the Pacific.
The cheetah thirsts for me.
And when you sprinkle me on ribeye,
you have no idea how I balance silence
with thunder in crystal.
You dream of butterfly hunting in Madagascar,
spelunking through caves echoing with dripping stalactites.
And you don't see how I yearn to shimmer
an orange aurora against flame.
Look at me in your hand.
In Egypt, I scrub the bodies of kings and queens.
In Pakistan, I zigzag upward through 26 miles of tunnels
before drawing my first breath in sunlight.
If you heat a kiln to 2,380 degrees and scatter me inside,
I vaporize and bond with clay.
In this unseen moment of powder, praise, because my pattern
is out of his hands.
And when I touch your lips, you salivate.
And when I dissolve on your tongue, your hair rises,
ozone unlocks.
A single stroke of lightning sizzles to Earth."