Spatula Mouth
When one holds a spatula
to the lighted light bulb, the silhouette
zooms away. The silhouette burns
a mouth inside the mouth. The mouth
burns an engine in the silhouette.
With this mouth you might say:
silhouette yourself. With this mouth
you might make other mouths.
You might spend four days kissing.
You might sing and eat at the same time.
This mouth does not fear
the street-sweepers, the meter-maids,
the parking attendants who weave
quilts out of left-behind seatbelts.
With this mouth a bird rises and flares out,
the wind swims by like seaweeds,
an electrical charge and the wind
and a lantern around your neck.
Mouth around your neck. Spatula
piercing the delicate skin of your pocket.
E-mails my thumb, inserts pills in small plastic case.
The silhouette comes back like a cape.
Mouth eats poem. Falls from rafters.
Light bulb beside house, house up in flames.
—Nathan Hoks