CATHY CULTICE LENTES
After my hysterectomy,
a friend dreams of us shopping,
filling pillowcase after pillowcase
with salt,
our carts so heavy,
we strain like shackled slaves
to inch them down the aisle.
She confesses, in her dream
she feared I coveted
her brimming cases;
strangely, in daylight,
I am embarrassed,
find myself explaining
I would never steal her salt.
What can this mean?
Reason says nothing—
her dream, her salt—
but a grain has lodged
in some dark chamber,
an irritation an oyster might
worry for self-preservation.
Does she think me greedy,
unrefined, untrustworthy,
needy on a basic level?
Why pillowcases?
Why so much, and only,
salt? We laugh it off,
but the taste lingers.
In the days of my recovery,
when medicines stir
nauseating sea, I keep turning
back, a pillar of doubt,
recounting sins, those salted wounds,
no knife or drug can treat.