Why are we humans so prone to take for granted those things that are most essential to our well being? The sun rising in the morning, the rain falling in the spring, the soil under our feet; our eyes, our ears, our hands? The utterly commonplace yet unfathomably complex phenomenon that is love?

Love Like Salt

by Lisa Mueller

It lies in our hands in crystals
too intricate to decipher

It goes into the skillet
without being given a second thought

It spills on the floor so fine
we step all over it

We carry a pinch behind each eyeball
It breaks out on our foreheads

We store it inside our bodies
in secret wineskins

At supper, we pass it around the table
talking of holidays and the sea.

From Mueller’s collection, Alive Together: New and Selected Poems (LSU Press, 1996)