Cynthia Gallaher

Thirteen Ways of Looking
at a White Salt Lamp
 
1. you glow, iceberg,
frozen nimbus
behind a nimbus.
 
2. white hot with
permanency, gray shadows
along your surface only pop
your brilliance.
 
3. you’re an oversized
and chunky birthday candle
for a neanderthal.
 
4. you glow, but are cool
to the touch,
close eyes
hold onto this rocky outcropping
and pull yourselves
to a higher ledge.
 
5. the woman who
sold you claimed
you are billions of years
old, older than dirt.
 
6. imperfect, original
like a snowflake, no two alike
even when unlit
we can find you in the dark.
 
7. on or off
your positive ions
sally forth
charging the air around you
speaking in a language
no one can hear.
 
8. here, you represent the ocean
on dry land, the smell of salty sea,
do the tides pull on you,
on us?
 
9. cousin to seashells,
the fishiness of birth,
femininity in its molecules
arranged in a wild romp
of sodium chloride.
 
10. tasting you
anytime fingers graze
your surface,
you never degrade,
imperishable.
 
11. tasting you
even when we breathe,
your ions open lungs,
cleanse cerebral pathways
simplicity hidden
in complex crystals.
 
12. a glance at you
in the dark bedroom corner
catches a golden nugget
deep within the mouth
of a cave.
 
13. or a cat,
contented,
curled up
and purring softly.



Cynthia Gallaher, a Chicago-based poet, is author of four poetry collections, including Epicurean Ecstasy: More Poems About Food, Drink, Herbs and Spices, and three chapbooks, including Drenched. Her award-winning nonfiction/memoir/creativity guide is Frugal Poets’ Guide to Life: How to Live a Poetic Life, Even If You Aren’t a Poet. Gallaher was judge for the 2022 Prairie State Poetry Contest, and one of her poems will be sent on NASA's flight to the south pole of the moon later this decade.