Caroline Bird

The Softness of the Morning

If the breeze through the trees were a tongue
it couldn't say a word. My bottom lip grew so long,
it wrapped around the rivers
and the wandering silent pilgrims set up picnics
in the curve of my mouth, each with a story to tell
of a journey that was never done.

In the softness of the morning, I entered the forest,
following my lip for the source of this taste,
I rode on a donkey that had once been a beautiful princess,
kept the heart of a nightingale inside my nostril
and gained a new gold tooth with every sniffle,
I ate apples from the poisoned shrub,
drank water from the holy spring, I washed my feet in quick sand,
and still my bottom lip stretched over mountains,
soundless and sore. I danced with sexless shadows,
phantoms with faces like soft holes
singing down my throat like the sighing
of a thousand ugly damsels trapped in turrets.
I shaved my eyebrows with a sharpened stick,
painted on a look of sudden surprise,
carved the deepest part of the ocean, crammed an oak into an acorn,
stitched my eyes with feathers, robbed a church,
picked a flower that could live without sun,
made love to a dwarf who nudged into my body
like a boat attempting to moor on my chest.
I filled my stomach with baby wolves,
sailed on a dew drop through acres of oil, bathed in perfume
until even my shit tempted mermaids,
found religion beneath a fallen log, stopped for a beer,
kicked August from the calendar,
stole a moment of joy from the breath of a swan,
injected moonshine into my ears, listened to butterflies swearing,
sat on a rock made of time, stuffed a glow-worm in my windpipe,
electrified the air. And still had nothing to say.