How would you describe yourself to someone?

i’m what’s left after /

you wring the sky for scent

a tincture of black agar / & salt-rimmed lipstick

stored in the wrong bottle

i eat standing /

facing a blank wall

mouth full of brine / sugar / lichen

leftovers & longing

sometimes chalk

i don’t describe /

i distill

a brackish woman /

half salt / half river 

i carry crushed petals in my shoe

& never admit what they mean

i was perfume once /

now i’m sand

now i’m bite /

now i’m sea-wet myrrh

scraped from a tide-wrecked altar

ask who i am- 

i’ll hand you a spoon

& the name of the plant that poisons gently