A sea lives on my tongue,
a whale-fall, ponderous
as a herd of rocks, churning
dark infinities of water,
sharpening its tired lustre.

//

From root to crown, sap
flows around, trapping me
in its cloying braid. A forest
lives on my tongue,
its chorus glottal & chopped.

//

Silence writhes like a lizard
in a hyena’s maw. An island lives
on my tongue, its sound
fissured, a cadaver
dyeing the blank sands red.

//

Where birds, pale as granite,
hang in effigy, night’s quiet
flaking like mica from their bodies.
A mountain lives on my tongue.