When I licked this page, my tongue slid along the bark of a birch tree, the tameness of its white, the roughness of its dark. I could taste the ice encrusting it, the blizzard that brought it, planted it.

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When I licked this page I tasted the starch, the glue that bound my lips together, released, breached, dissolved, swallowed.

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As I licked this page light entered my mouth and tickled my chest; a piece of silk lowered into my throat, rupturing membranes, pleasantly suffocating.

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As I licked this page your silence hurt me more than ever. I stared at you, doe eyed with my tongue sticking out, my tongue spread across the paper. I paused, the hair on my neck stood up in vigilance. Shhh.

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When I licked this page, the charcoal made my tongue black, but that was yesterday. Your eyelashes glimmered, golden even at night.

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When I licked this page, I could taste your salt.

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As I licked this page, my mouth filled up with powdered sugar, I inhaled and coughed a sweet and heavy cough.

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When I licked this page I could taste the cold glass of the window which I pressed my face, my lips against in search of numbness.

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In licking this page I disturbed the mirror of the lake, then tilted my head backwards.

As I licked this page, it melted like butter underneath my tongue.

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Licking this page left my mouth feeling dry, my liquid stolen, stored by its fibre.

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In licking this page I have left upon it an imprint of the space behind my teeth.

 

a poem in a page,
2014