the River of forgetfulness

“My mother boils seawater.

It sits all afternoon simmering on the stovetop, almost two gallons in a big soup pot.

The windows steam up and the house smells like a storm.

In the evening, a crust of salt is all that’s left at the bottom of the pot.

My mother scrapes it out with a spoon. We each lick a fingertip and dip them in the salt and it’s softer than you’d think, less like sand and more like snow.

We lay our fingertips on our tongues, right in the middle. It tastes like salt but like something else, too—wide, and dark.

It tastes like drowning, or like falling asleep on the shore and only waking up when the tide has come up to your feet and you wonder if you’d gone on sleeping, would you have sunk?”