I plant a graveyard of feathers on my tongue. Watch them sprout into birds without wings. I could pluck up these flightless fowl, snuff out the flame of their beaks, find that charred wick of tongue beneath. A thread of unspoken words waiting to be pulled.
But it’s a pointless show.
Those birds see there is no blue in the cave of my mouth, no hope for the freedom of sky. So, they bury themselves beneath the roots of my teeth. Even there, I could dig them up, salvage their forms into aspirated syllables that pass for agreeable sound. But the birds have already begun their second evolution. Shedding feathers. Coughing up bones. Revealing slippery skin. In small salty batches, they slide past scars where my wisdom teeth used to be and add their bodies to the tangle of old things I hold in my throat.
