Elixir

How brackish those inland seas we carry within us, and how sweet
the salt memory of those tides. This is all I can do, now: fix myself
a cup of coffee, watch the honey-thread spin itself in as I stir, catch
it on the tip of my finger and lick it off. A taste of that mineral elixir,
and I recall how the berry stains set on your hands: sweat as mordant
fixing the juice, dyeing the memory, our skin damp as the inland sea.