issue 35, 2005
Questiones—Of Water and Salt
In this kiln, the desert, we add salt to the water
in the form of pellets, to make it gentle.
The humming plastic tub in the garage seeps
its melted lozenges into the house, protecting
the equipment from calcification, our bodies
from soap, from the dust-sodden air.
Water is eaten by light. The cracked sea floor
litters its horde of bones and scales
in the wind. Every surface is crazed.
The ocean has turned to dust and passes over us.
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Sally Ball is a professor of English and director of creative writing at Arizona State University, Ball is also an associate director of Four Way Books. She has received fellowships from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, CAMAC Centre d’Art, the James Merrill House, the Ucross Foundation, and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. She also teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.