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The Logic of Tears
Clay Waters

water and salt, they leave nothing behind—
losing them won’t make you lesser

they can render you helpless
and appease an aggressor

they’re inexhaustible and free
and life brims with reasons

to deploy those puzzling
paradoxical secretions

so don’t trap them in your lids
but let them flow

they only do you good
when you let them go

—
Clay Waters has had poems published in Green Hills Literary Lantern, the Santa Clara Review, Roanoke Review, and Poet Lore. He has also self-published a cozy mystery novel, Death in the Eye.

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