The tiny grains on his fingertip
His hand beckoning her mouth
To taste the salt on her tongue
She reaches over
Bending lips
On finger
Finger on lips tasting salt
Fed the bitter
Grains taught
This fascination so rare in Kenya
She had gagged when he fed her a French fry
Running cool sink water over her burning
Lips
In Africa there was not this much salt for the tribe in one meal
All those wasted grains on fried potato
In America
The salt is snow in a blizzard
Like the snow globe he used to explain
The phenomenon to her
When he first asked her to make him
A tiny cloud
Brooding under its white
He brushed the white from her hair
White on white he laughed
He offered her the snowflake
On his thumb
To taste
He has been feeding her life
Bit by bit ever since
When no one was looking
When time was slow
In the kitchen
He would feed her bits of the world
And in the forest he
Would introduce her to the fawn
And explain
What little he remembered
From his life in Canada
While she spun him stories
About the plains
In Kenya and her people
All the while she tasted the salt
On his fingertip