Summary

In the first quintain, the speaker asks to be given a church made of salt. The walls of this structure would hiss and smoke when the speaker returns to shore. In Stanza 2, the speaker asks for a new freckle to form on her cheek as a kind of blessing. She also asks for the uplifting nature of water and to be touched by her mother's soapy skin.

The speaker requests to be hidden away in the third stanza. She wishes to be inside a windowless room that obscures the sight of dolphins leaping "into commas" outside (15). Nezhukumatathil calls this poem a "water-prayer" in the fourth stanza as she describes the way it rises into the air like sky lanterns (16). The rising prayer vanishes among the stars, which form constellations of heroes and animals. In the final line, the speaker states that these heroes and...