i broke

my question to you

down over the back of my tongue

and couldn’t quite spit its lifeless body

out of the newly minted mausoleum of my mouth

it drips through the gaps between my plaque infested teeth

gelatine strings hanging from these small holes i watch you fluster

from the fear that what I have asked you is a flustering thing to ask someone

what is your book about?

you jam a thought into the pages

desperate to open up

a definition that captures what is surely more than any dust jacket summary

the air between our two bodies generates nerves that waver

wires through your body upright behind a table

dancing a repeating act of resistance to a stop

you tell me it’s about people

and someone dies like everything