Those who believed that the waves
lapping at their feet were themselves the sea
stayed safe, within their peninsula.
There, where the waves hide the island
tears are salt,
poetry is salt, sex is salt,
the sun’s burning finger is salt, love is salt,
the roots of medicinal herbs are salt,
bodily pain is salt.
There, tears are indeed salt.
Even at this distance
a sourness belches from the heart
like an enemy;
a fear is felt, as when a friend is ill.
Yet no one will hold their breath
and cross the sea to the island.
The island is a raft,
the raft a pot of fire,
Sri Lanka, burning.