Natalie Scenters-Zapico

Natalie Scenters-Zapico is from the sister cities of El Paso, Texas and Juárez, México. Her poetry is forthcoming or has appeared in The Believer, Bellevue Literary Review, Palabra and more. She is managing editor of Blue Mesa Review.

This Bitter Salt

A girl peels a map of Antarctica
into strips and eats each mountain
range. She says she fell in a river
with a rocky carpet, hurt her
china cabinet. With one finger,
she says, the doctor showed her
blood. She says she sat in a bathtub,
watched the water turn red
in infertility. She says ocean stings
into the lungs when you swallow.
What is left once you've tasted
the bitter salt of sea? She says,
please take me to see the flamingos—
I love the color pink and it loves me.