Marilyn Fleming

Salt Lick

We are kids. It is late summer and we slip away to follow the deer trail in the woods. This is the time of the year when the apples are not quite ripe, but green and sour. We bite into the skin to expose the flesh. Slowly we rub the flesh on the salt block. The salt changes everything. The tartness becomes tangy and we gorge ourselves knowing at least one of us will get a belly ache.

Really we don't care. It’s all about the wildness of it. For a few moments we become deer. Our doe eyes watching, waiting to pick up a predator’s scent.

not yet dawn—
tongue grooves
in the salt lick