These pores in my hands
are wells
descending
to the vault of my bones—
a granite cradle
shaped in the womb.
Blood fused into bricks,
cemented with the cigarette ashes
my mother smoked—
still compact inside my ribs.
These teeth, shaped
by milky streams,
rooted in my gums.
My dermis—
her fossilized tears.
I am the Himalayan salt mine
waiting to be undone
into foam and return
to the sea that seasoned me—
now the salt shaker
rusting in her kitchen sink,
scraped by a knife
back onto her tongue.
Ramiro Valdes is a poet from Miami. His work has been published in several literary magazines.
