T. De Los Reyes

Salt

My dog has died. I wander into the little kitchen 

light dim and flickering like a bird’s wings or what 

could have been her heartbeat. I reach out and 

hold on to a bottle of salt waiting for the wave 

to pass. I am at the hospital and my grandfather 

is gasping in his final hours. Then I am wading 

through the flooded city once more not knowing 

if I’ll survive the night. I am a child again hiding 

under the table when an argument collapses like

broken glass. I thought, this isn’t right—the five 

spices should be beside the Szechuan peppercorns 

and the green curry beside the lime leaves. I move 

the ponzu next to the togarashi. The plum sauce 

near—oh, oh, what am I to do now. Saffron, sage

and thyme. Tomorrow they will bury her soft body 

underneath a row of hibiscus happily blooming in 

the summer. I ache everywhere. May I please lay

beside her, I asked an empty room. A lifetime ago 

Virginia wrote I can’t fight any longer and then walked 

into the river, her pockets filled with white rocks. 

Meanwhile, rosemary. Meanwhile, black truffle.

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Image by Meruyert Gonullu from Pexels

T. De Los Reyes is a Filipino poet and the author of And Yet Held (Bull City Press). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, Diode, Epiphany, Waxwing, and elsewhere. A 2025 VONA Summer Fellow, she has been nominated for Best of the Net. She is the founder of Read A Little Poetry. Read more of her work at tdelosreyes.com.

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