Four Poems
by Tania Jaramillo
Heavytongued I carry my tongue in my hands when it is too heavy for my mouth. It crusts over and crystallizes in shimmering lead. The first time my tongue grew too heavy for my mouth I didn't notice at first. I remember: I woke up one day and brushed my teeth, watched myself in the mirror. applied just a little too much force. the sun shone dimly on the fogged over surface of the glass. I stayed this way for a while, in this remembering of a dream reflected in the mirror that meant very little, until I began to cough and sputter as rivulets of toothpaste and water that tasted of nothing courses unimpeded down my throat and I realized what I had lost. I am an excellent conversationalist the times when my tongue does not turn to lead. When my tongue is too heavy for my mouth I lay it down on the kitchen countertop. I rifle through the drawers for knives, batteries, circuits and wires. With a mouth full of blood I make gold The gleaming I slept with my knees under my chin fastened in place I mean held fast I mean like how can I explain it like when I fasten the charms on my sweater and their colors to me and fasten this something rare and fragile to me. That everything precious in the world spoke to me in the gleam leaving me. I mean like if I didn’t hold it fast it would leave me. Leave slowly. Full of electricity humming static and in the spill my arms wrapped loosely around us. I mean he didn’t understand why it was so important to me holding gleaming . My hair full of singing and fastening myself folding his body over my body in the dark he would say I’m here aren’t I here with you I’m here you keep me. And crying in his ear like I don’t want to keep you from anywhere anyone anything and he said that’s not what I mean like I mean that you keep me I mean that you keep me in place I mean like stay the same I mean like the outside doesn’t touch us the way it does other people and what would they understand about any of the things that are important to us I mean doesn’t touch us here I mean you keep me here. My hair falling over us both and wet with my tears. And I will spend my whole life wondering what makes the something shimmering I mean the gleaming in it. I mean the gleaming you put in me. The way tears fall like glass and in their gleaming leave me and the moment breaks open I mean breaks me open. And coming back shimmering when I cry that I was so happy to give you everything I mean I keep you here. The waves My mother taught me how to swim to where the tide meets forever, where the mirror world washes over me with silver pale regretting in undertow I kick to no use, & I take it on the chin Where there are stitches now, my mother was a star swimmer before she was cursed by a witch and her knees gave out, out, and now I kick shadows so well I can do it in my sleep. A short dream of the universe In a bed filled with electricity I feel blood on my tongue so strange at so young and I feel around what-for and find the tooth that I lost and the taste of something to lose, and when we talk I wonder how old you were when you tasted nothing’s presence, how we said goodbye on the phone.
Tania is a writer and poet whose work has appeared in Hobart, Parcel and most recently Gopnik Press. You can follow their writing under their substack @waifmoding. They are currently at work on their debut novel.