Tongue

by E.E. Karn

Words rest here–

Atremble on a dagger’s point,

Stimulating hunger.

Heat lives before birth.

Taste the tang of sudden passion,

Taste the salt of the weeping sea,

Words are smoky, trailing tongues of flame–

Embers exist in every exhale

Igniting wooden stillness

Into white-hot life.

Feed me with words, bursting ripe

I do not swallow the morsels I receive

I savor