My Cornered Sound


I drag a drawer open
inside I see There wrapped

I know it's There because
of a sharp far smell

I take out the package of There
its wrapping-paper sprouts
thick black hairs

the package is bound
with a red slippery ligament

for later I put
the package aside

onto a table cowering
on an horizon

I push my head into the drawer
I let my tongue slide along
all the drawer's corners

I collect splinters of language
I pull my fattened head out

my mouth cradles
a hedgehog of story
this bristling tonguehog is so sore

now with my splintered tongue out
I sit at the frail table on the horizon

I unwrap the package of There
I undo its red slippery string
I fold back its black-haired paper

a loud pressure of air
flattens fast onto my face

the hedgehog in my mouth
balances syllables on There's edge
syllables grow louder & faster
through my face


it will not be long before
I & my tongue learn
how the drawer's old corners
were put together

and when I find the last dust of ideas
in the last corner of a last drawer
I will tension The Clock

When will bust and Now will bend

my sentence will curl up
under leaves of days

my tongue will peacefully bleed
a new true cool story

I pull the slippery red ligament
across my scalp
tighten it over my head's wrapping

I leap from the horizon
into the drawer you

must push shut