ecophysicality

all i can smell is salt,
blinding iron accosting my senses.
the tang in my nostrils,
i can't get the taste out of my mouth,
salt injected into every idea and word,
changing me internally
into earth and history and nature.
am i bitter, am i sinful,
am i a pillar of turning back for home,
am i just one more particle in the deep ocean
that a man holier than i might walk upon?
i am impregnated by terra firma,
the biblical proportions of self:
i am a mineral,
i am mined from darker regions,
i am evacuated from a worldwide liquid dream,
i am the taste left in thousands of mouths
after violence, or sex.
a chlorine infection in my blood,
in my spit and in my eyes and underneath my skin,
a connection to the earth.
dark caves with water dripping through the walls
the covert space my bundle of nerves drips through,
a limestone spine.
dry beaches crusted with oceanic leavings,
and when i wake there will be
evidence in my eyes that time and tide were here.
a brackish swamp that swallows sounds,
vocal cords that won't function
as bile rises from deeper trenches.
the salt is a symptom,
and it does not keep me from boiling over.