god'swife21 Jan 2006
You did conjure me, absolutely.
The words are perfect. Maybe you can mess around with the structure so you're happier with it, but the images are powerful and consistent. The first time i read this I understood the palate to be compared to a the whale's ribs somehow. now I see it's to the whale's own palate. I just automatically pictured a rib cage just under the whales skin.
Hmmmm.
Is the last verse in future tense? The rest seems all present. In the fourth line it's future tense. Maybe instead of 'would' 'will' might work there a little better. Maybe 'a palate should be 'your palate' or 'my palate'.
My tongueâs loose slide
will soon let slip
this truth, bruised blue
behind these sentinel teeth.
We meet, touch, fuck.
But we seldom speak
more than surface gloss--
From niceties to wordless heat.
We move
With your hand warm on my neck.
I swallow words thick with promise,
and glistening like larva
trapped in tissue webs,
my palate ridged as a whale's.
Words that grow pallid
like mushrooms in that echoless dark,
made slick with the sweat of caves.
I devour you,
A carnal glide,
soft as a worm,
down,
down,
in my rich earth.