“Don’t shake it.”

He speaks in distracted manner,

as of one who grasps deep understanding

of such things as cell phones –

broken –

that should not rattle & shift within themselves

with shivers of noise in enthralling fashion.

Don’t shake it.

But…

He said nothing of lifting it,

drawing it over lips, teeth, tongue,

feeling that seam incised in its length & sides,

of separating that seam so that gears &

circuitry & delicate inner workings

sift uniformly across the tongue,

crunch between molars, premolars, incisors,

move like coarse sand or grit or powdered glass

past pharynx & larynx

to scrape slowly, finally, at long last

d

o

w

n  

the trachea…

He said nothing of this.

Needless warning.

Uncalled for.

Implicitly

understood.

— C.Birde, 8/20