Salt A woman of twenty-six, while in prison awaiting trial, succeed[ed] in committing suicide by introducing about 30 pins and needles in the chest region, over the heart. Her method was to gently introduce them, and then to press them deeper with a prayer-book. —Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, 1896 You were the lover for which I bled. Comfort me with salt: tears, their silken twin. Understand I have made my arms doors for you. Listen: in the quiet cell she was left with only women’s tools—fat pincushion, muslin, thirty silver jabs to sew a dull square. She begged for the Bible, knowing the temper of the hand. Even the openings I gave myself betrayed. They scabbed overnight, star clots. She drove the points deep with the word, veined leather as black as her secret down. All the while I tasted you. But how could I contain you? There was no slick color until the third or fourth jag had made its tunnel in. By then it was sure; her sampler would be skin. I learned -45- two cuts make a cross, five is a marker, then the whole opens up to be forested: her breast before mapped with seams, blood latitude down. I gave everything of my body. I thought it was punishment she wanted to escape, guilty, the dry rope waiting. It was punishment she wanted. But I have your salt to comfort me. Now the stars breaking through the body bared. Now the blood, tender like touch, flint to the tongue—and to the mouth, sweet. -46- ...