I awake inside of my own mouth,
lying next
to a double-edged dagger that has used
its body to collect tit for tat,
engorging itself
on hot blood, licking
its lips at the thought of iron
spilling onto the hungry earth.
I have watched it shred
into any moving thing, into any loving thing, burrowing
into my own skin as I shadowboxed
against a mahogany-skinned boy who claimed to share my name.
I have seen him wage holy war
on all he denounced as unrighteous,
while shedding
like some venom-filled python waiting to strike. But I have known my tongue
to cradle cloves, and honey
release from its folds, to soothe
wounds like a shaman witching
out hysteria. It can sew
love back together in the midnight hour,
running over saliva-silky bone that could tear
to ruin, but expose themselves as a sign
of affection. My mouth has held music
and misery, every season in its prime, the landfill
and the ether. It has housed the vibrations
thundering from within, to the point of
screaming. Still
more djinn than judicial,
it would pluck the stars from heaven
and place them in your eyes,
oh, if you would but ask.