If you taste tears too often, inquisitive tongue,
You’ll find they’ve something you’d not reckoned on;
Crept childish out to touch eye’s own phenomenon,
Return, into your element. Tears belong
To only eyes; their deepest sorrow they wrung
From water. Where wept water’s gone
That residue is sorrow, salt and wan,
Your bitter enemy, who leaves the face white-strung.

Tears, taster, have a dignity in display,
Carry an antidotal gift for drying.
Unsuited to a savoring by the way,
Salt puckers tear-drops up, ends crying.
Oh curious, cracked and chapped, now will you say,
Tongue, “Grief’s not mine” and bend yourself to sighing?


 = David Hoak