By: Barbara Tramonte

THE GOODNESS OF SALT

Sugar
Chocolate
Weed
Vegetables
Egg yolks bleeding
On squash blossoms
Cats named Priscilla
Pronounced like Sheila
Swimming in Italy

How do I not understand?
Things taste good
Feel good
Swish, swash
In good water
With grand wine
Why, then,
My mood,
Off the map?

Medieval
Neapolitan
Jewish
Sikh
Wonderful world with

Sugar
Chocolate
Weed
Roasted red peppers
Lamb with the mark of the cross
Risotto
So much more forgiving
Than quinoa

Oysters sucked
Outta the shell
Teapots brimming
With Aunt Rae’s tea

In agony,
Dragged down the road
Cross the map.

EAST FLATBUSH

On cold tiles
In a bathroom that
Helene knew
Because she couldn’t shit

I think back to
The janitor in that building
In East Flatbush
I think about
Steven and his daughter Barbara-Ann

They came to my life
On a bicycle
Barbara-Ann, a wonder
Filled with jacks

We spent our time
Suspended
On Church Avenue
With pennies
Mechanical ponies
And a Spaulding ball

Her father
He had a cap
A cabbie cap
And strong features
And he had a smell

She had something fresh

We played
On our stomachs
In my room
On the street with balls
And chalk
On the sidewalk
Near the chain-link fence