The Funny Tongue
By Karyna McGlynn
You ask why I sound funny.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve been draping gauzy scarvesover my head
as if I am some sort of lamp. I’d like my tongue cut out— carefully though—
with a thick shard of glass. The clinking against my
teeth would
remind me of big ice tea tumblers, my stepfather from
Beaumont
with his parade of sugar packets plucked up at once
and shaken with three quick snaps of the wrists.
So what is it about my voice?
Just yesterday I sold an egg
and now I’m browsing for children in the video store—
little street lambs asking for pieces of cake:
their knees smell of garlic and they’re all dog
owners. All the men I spend my days with are scavengers, you
say.
I should wear my bathing suit and bring a bucket,
let a nine year-old bury me beneath a sand dune,
see if someone can find me before the snakes.
I am buried in all the wrong places,
where there’s no boardwalk and it’s hard to get to.
After love we’ll have to use the outdoor showers,
take the tar of our bodies with yellow petroleum soap,
makes me smell of leaky car.
Oh, and I’m beginning to find underwear redundant
and no one wants to buy them for me,
so I don’t bother now, okay?
Still asking your permission in regards to everything
intimate.
Still sitting up with my arms barring the way,
as if my windows are made of cellophane,
until morning drops like white quarters on my eyes.
Dreaming of becoming a curve of pink soap,
becoming the powder blue arch of a pump that does not
fit—
slowly slicing out the funny looking tongue.