Wrote A Poem

A Stone In My Mouth

It feels death-like, long before it is. Silence in every pore;
the lungs, frozen solid; the breath, stopped.
Words dried up at the root—the sentence
hovers, unpronounced. A prophecy foretold.

So write your name down, fast, before you forget.
Carve it deep.
Let the dust fall where it will, gritty on the tongue,
before the river washes it away.
These letters, this sense—this cold grey tide
eddying away to nowhere.

You cannot speak of this, it whispers.
These are sacred matters, set in silence.
Better to fold it all away
like a napkin, a cerement. Pull the sheet up
over your head and knot the string,
a seed-pod awaiting burial, flowering, harvest.

Oh, you unlovely thing. You doll of mud.
You cast-off shell, skin stuffed with bones.
This is what we all come to, eventually—
God's promise, broken by disobedience.

We each carry a corpse with us, back-straddled.
We each owe one death, no more.
No less.

Pick out a rock, nothing soft or singular;
inscribe it, letter by letter, then fold
the whole into your tongue's centre-crease,
edge down, so speaking draws blood.
Each word will be a wound,
an invocation. A sacrifice, yourself to yourself:
nine days and nights on the tree,
twigs scattered beneath your high-hung heels,
an alphabet of dirt, of magic lies.

You make the grave your bed, pull
cold earth over. Wait for the bell to ring—
morning, and the call to rise.

You may not know your own name when you hear it
again, after all this time.
Spit out the stone, and check.