Cymothoa Exigua

cymothoa exigua *: the tongue as what it is not—blemish and parasite: gimp and glottal stop: what question can be answered with a truant mouth: can the lynched man hung from the sails of a windmill taste the lead pipe wedged between his lips: when the signifiers dangle, empty chum lines in a cold creek: when the men in Waco, wearing white straw hats, fraying at the crisp edges of their white shirts, leave Jesse, leave John, leave Paul in ashes in the unpaved streets to choke passing mules into prophecy: when we pinch our noses to staunch the smell of the twice burnt black man burning for a third time this day: when the boys, sweet and good animals, come to what’s been left in shallow ditches: false rib and femur, clavicle and severed hand—quite simply, the language of sorrow: glyph of the gadfly rooting himself into the rotting meat of the dead: when it is too late to refuse our bodies being made urns: corn, unharvested and heavy in its husks: when, in the marketplace, the butcher lifts our tongue from a bed of ice, shouts:who will speak for this flesh: when the tongue answers as all severed tongues do: