Come, little tongue
Why don't you say a word?
Had your letters stopped
That Mama tied you up
Infront of a foreign lap?
Anne with an E
You read her magazines
Feeding fire within
Licking lines in between
Words stampede
Yet three periods still impede
"..."

Here and there, silence imploding
Patience losing
The English teacher demands:
"Speak, little tongue!
Tell us how you think.
Speak to us the words you often read."
You step further back
In the hollow of my mouth
The cave echoes beats of my heart
Deafening...
My silence still defending
My blank canvas a fog is painting
Oh, little tongue!
Cry in air, cry in oxygen
Whimper if you can
For my memory is still forming
In the quiet, crystallizing
May it come later clear and singing

Now, little tongue
You must teach us what you do not know
About a birth that one throws
How is a life conceived?
When does it deserve to live?
Clueless scrambled thoughts
Succumbed to one:
"I am a Christian..."
Before our time we leave the stage open
And later find
That is all we can say the more we age
Since then we chose the backstage

Until we're offered a hand
To take the spotlight
Though heavy on my eyes
We oblige
Unbeknownst to me
That you would not move
Tongue in cheek
A painting hanging in the Louvre
Is a monk opposite a geek
Talking Greek to someone meek
Who in the final hours felt small
As the curtains fall

But come, sweet tongue
You are not less by what you don't speak
Your ken is zen
Your trance
Is not the lack of substance
Because when you stir
Fireflies linger in your tears
A deer sighing poems dear
Here in the quiet
Where you are a seer

© Jireh Grace Pihoc