My mother,
a glutton for pain,
drinks from
a bowl of her tears;
the salt burns her throat, yet
she continues to guzzle down her
sorrow, cheeks reddening
as the nighttime watches
with eager eyes.

She is at her last drop;
eyes dazed and desperate, she licks
the salt coating her
chapped lips as the tiny white sins
bite into her ripe flesh.
Setting the bowl down,
her shoulders shudder like
a wounded dog, releasing a torrent of tears into
the basin overflowing with
an agony lain
dormant for a century.
With shaking hands, she
raises the vessel to her lips again.