Salt

When Aunt Lia died, childless,
mother put salt in my coat pocket,
bid me take my younger sister
and tell the cows. As to the salt:

Evil spirits lurk everywhere and hate
that dash over the left shoulder
into the face. One can torment a fiend
no end with simple seasoning. As to the cows:

Securing our fortune or not, I was fourteen
and you wouldn’t catch me nattering to livestock
with the likelihood of being spotted, particularly
by the Randal brothers. As to my sister:

She took the opportunity to heart, telling one black
heifer about Auntie’s tendency to rock in her chair
and fart. She prattled on about how she warned
Papa not to light his pipe near the cushions.

As to the Randal Brothers, Sean and Hugh:
one year separated their ages, the Irish Sea
embodied their differences. I married Hugh,
a cause for tears—enough, I hope, to dissolve

spilt salt and reverse the back luck in my house.

Lori Romero is the winner of the Spring 2008 Spire Spring Poetry Chapbook Contest. Her first chapbook, Wall to Wall, was published by Finishing Line Press. Her short story, Strange Saints, was a semifinalist in the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award. Lori’s poetry and short stories have been published in more than eighty journals and anthologies. She was recently nominated for her second Pushcart Prize.