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Pouring Salt
The Hyacinth Review
The Hyacinth Review

Pouring Salt

by
May 17, 2022
oil painting of a stormy sea
Yalta, Ivan Aivazovsky, 1899

Dina Klarisse (she/her) is a writer, poet, editor, and serial…

After Maria Bolaños

In response to “Why The Ocean Is Salty” from Filipino Popular Tales
narrated by José M. Paredes of Bangued, Ilocos Sur. He heard the story from a farmer.

They’ve blamed us so long that to say blaming women is cliche is cliche. Sit us on rocks. Comb our black hair, turn our eyes into fiery stones of rage apathy pride lust. He said Ocean was so tired of men building a house of salt for a beautiful woman that she drowned them in her bosom: Sea water birthed from she who just wanted a good night’s sleep poured from split cuticles onto gaping mouths he was hungry, always has been, will always spit us out after sucking the marrow. Bodies need sodium chloride to maintain fluids, absorb and transport nutrients. You’re welcome for her service.
We’ve been salty for centuries, are millions of years in the making, splashing burning water into eyes that leer, rubbing cylinders of Morton onto slashed hands that grab us then ask what we were wearing how much we drank who we talked to in what pitch and how loud and when we were and who are we and why. Story starts at Medusa’s split ends, story flows as Ophelia drowns. Man dies, story turns to myth, and arms bulge into hero’s biceps— strong enough to carry the weight of land and sea. Ocean is tired, rheum rubbed into cornea until we are all swimming with the mermaids and sirens that he invented. She drinks all the salt water she can as we evaporate to myth. we write ourselves into story
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Dina Klarisse (she/her) is a writer, poet, editor, and serial procrastinator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Poetry is her way of making sense of her experience as a queer Filipina American immigrant and recovering Catholic, as well as her interest in the intersections of history, language, culture, and identity. Her work has been published in ASU’s Canyon Voices, The Daily Drunk Mag, Chopsticks Alley, and Kalopsia Literary Journal, among others. She serves as Poetry & Issue Editor for the online literary magazine Marías at Sampaguitas, as well as Editorial Director for the indie micropress, Sampaguita Press. Her debut chapbook, Handspun Rosaries, is coming out in Summer 2022.

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