The memory of salt
begins with stickiness
and unbearable heat
living below the skin,
the kind that likes ice cream,
sweaty, pink afternoons,
dreaming of the ocean,
and getting there to swim.
Summer is collected
in an orange flashback,
the slow wistful minutes
doodled on a notebook
while philosophizing
about old abstractions
not fully understood.
The rusty, briny hours
spent inside a treehouse,
an aged, loved playground,
or a re-purposed box
is clearly time well-spent.
What is tasted of life
is what is remembered.
And even above-ground,
a lot reeks of the sea.
BOUNDING MAIN
K. Y. Sia
Author Bio: Some of K. Y. Sia’s poems can be seen in Gangan Internationales Literaturmagazin, 3 a.m. Magazine, Locust Magazine, and so on. Despite having lost hand function as a result of a progressive disease, she uses a dictation software and continues to be a freelance writer/editor/translator by trade. Some of her feature articles appeared in broadsheets and glossies.