SALT                                                                                                                  

Most things in the world

are preserved in brine at one point

or another. Several of my cousins

chose formaldehyde instead, a life

in jars, in labs, on metal shelves

stocked with what used to be selves,

which are now exhibits 11201

through 11245. It's a reasonable choice

for reasonable cousins

who believed in something after aperture.

My grandfather picked the fire

and perished there.

This is, like, an atrophying—something—

a something getting bigger

as we watch it approach in the rear view

which shrinky-dinks things down

to a more manageable size.

Solve one part of a problem at a time,

advice from days in Physics

fidgeting with the temporary glory of my graphing

calculator. Now it too is resigned

to salt and packed away

in my version of events, which diverges

the more I try to accommodate

the fouler urges

that are under everything

you can see from this vantage point:

field, forest, a couple dozen Airstream trailers,

jet vector trace

just visible through the thatch of cloud:

all of this could be seized,

as if a wing,

and broken open—