Salt Wife - A Poem

She lays upon the warm stone table
Her luxurious curves and sensual lines
Covered in ancient salt, a statue
Where the rise and fall of her breath
Marks her among the living, dreaming
She trembles as the first bucket of warm water
Is poured over her body, sluicing
The salt away, stripping her with each pass
Revealing more and more until
At the end, she lays, naked and eternal
Her flesh, pale pink, glistening from the water
He watches her breathe, he trembles