Dina Folgia

Salt Crown

It’s acceptable to live
in radiant fear.

I was handed this wisdom
in a cup half-filled

with hot water, lemon,
and salt. Electrolytes, I was told.

For the hangover. Reader,
that’s all this potion is:

a hot drink and the strength
to let that hard morning 

sit with you on some sunny
front porch. 

It’s magical, dear,
what fear can do for you.

Do not do as I have done.
Do not drink sweet wines 

more distracting than the upset
gut of that fear.

Do not let fathers who know
that fear talk you out of it,

no matter how they clutch
at your hands and beg.

Spend a sober morning
with me instead, in the place

where the clover meets
my doorstep. We’ll name that fear

like a dog and call it
until its ears perk up.

When you leave, I will fill again
a bowl with salt.

I will make a hundred steps
around my home 

with its trembling worms
and the starlings who eat them. 

I will spill myself a circle
and craft like my heel pressed 

into soft ground
a stomach.

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Dina Folgia is a queer poet, author and educator. Her work, which has been nominated for Best of the Net, Pushcart and the AWP Intro Journals Project, has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Salamander, Cherry Tree, Gigantic Sequins, Four Way Review, Ninth Letter Web Edition, Foglifter and others. She received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, where she served as the poetry editor of Blackbird. She teaches creative writing at VCU and The College of William & Mary.