Remnant Tongue
I woke wounded
didn’t speak for weeks
When I talk about it
I’m told
I put my hand
over my mouth
you know how this goes—
once it gets a taste
it comes back and back
it—I don’t like to use the word
I don’t like the word
cancer
I’d rather write this
and hand it to you
like the slice of my self
slid into a kidney-shaped basin
and rolled out of sight
parked on a shiny table by the elevator
near a clutch of doctors
who wag and cluck
while my divided tongue
throbs in its tray
*
such a long walk—
I didn’t think I’d been gone for years
I scratched at the screen of the sisters
their house down our old street
head full of things I needed to tell—
tongue still tender
no one came
I stepped through the bushes
cupped my hands to the picture window
like a lizard insinuating myself
in the between place
I caught the swish of a pale bathrobe
as it left the room
I called out to my old friend
or meant to call Debbie
when I lifted my tongue
the gauze dislodged and
blocked my throat
I stood in the dirt
choking on her name
*
oldest of our siblings
Debbie and I
our bond—
were all the other children
really necessary
I was lucky
I had to share a room with two sisters
but we each had a bed
she had to share
with four sisters two in each bed
she got the cot
dresses rehemmed passed down through the girls
the youngest the beauty
wore the most threadbare clothes—
before the mother turned them to rags
she razored off the buttons
what happened to Debbie
I asked too late
couldn’t guess how she died
from the obit
no donations no in lieu of flowers
her sisters wanted flowers
*
on foot
tasting blood always still
I walk the side of the road
as far from childhood as I can get
when a car comes toward me
I step back into the vines
turn sideways
make myself a smaller target
press my right fist to my heart
an apology for inconveniencing
the traffic
a gesture from the museum of gestures
three times we struck our chests
with our fists—all the little Catholic children—
subjects begging mercy from our baby king
mea culpa
mea culpa
mea maxima culpa
though nothing was our fault
any more than it was my sister’s fault
when our mother said
honey go walk him across the road
tongue frantic now
remnant tongue
and my little sister
our beauty
said come on mom
he’s old enough to cross on his own
and he said I’m old enough
