Salt Water

by Barbara Santucci


My mother loved to perm my hair
when I was too young to stop her.
Its stink clung to my hair for days.
Tada, she’d say.
I’d look in the mirror and cry.
I tasted the salt of my tears.

My mother hated when I got sweaty.
Always running, running down the street,
running while playing red rover with my cousins.
I’d come inside, my face red,
clothes damp from sweat.
I tell you, I’d do it again and again.
I tasted the salt of my sweat.

I dreamt my mother pulled me
by the hair from the sea,
my body limp, twisting in the wind.
I wasn’t drowning, really.
But rather, drowning in the sadness
that I never really knew her.
I tasted the salt of the sea.


* * * * *

Barbara Santucci has a Masters In Writing for Children from Vermont University and has published three picture books with the W. B. Eerdmans Books for Young Readers and several poems in adult anthologies. Her work as a poet and freelance artist has allowed her to look closely at nature and all its beauty.