not saudade

ocean fingers drag discarded vertebrae

and crumbled mountains down from dunes of sand

to where her hunger finds its satisfaction,
between her jaws.

the bone ache that piques,

the salted blood rushing to attend,

she is

a storm wind whipping rabid foam.

into her let me disappear,
element
to element.

let me melt,

my form ebb
into her brine
and wilds
and inky depths.

I turn to the earth and whisper that I must let my sisters

tend the hearth fires,
for I have found that so much of me

is an excess of blood
and spirit
and carbon
and I must seek to drench it.

I’m sorry,
I say,
my salt
dwells
in the nadir of your oceans.