What the tongue taught

On a damp October morning, you were taught a lesson
By a butcher’s knife as it painted
The milky throat of a ram red
but you forgot everything but the juicy aroma
of the tender breast you so love
and how a careless discourtesy of a blood drop destroyed your blue dress.

It taught you why poets liken themselves to hardworkers, hunters, makers:
It taught you the swooshing dart is not to kill the hart
But to kiss the reflection of the hunter-heart.

You learned the tongue clamped between jaws, unchewed,
Like a pan or the bit of roasted barbecue you relished,
was dearer to the ram than the life the knife was bowing away;

that the tongue being robbed of its roots was turing into ears
and hears itself say, “it’s better to die with one’s tongue intact
Than live tongueless.

O, let the hands bow me to death – I will be the lyre;
but this business of being mine saviour tires me”