Archeologists Discover Mummy with Golden Tongue

Poetry
Written By Susan Porterfield

The tongues . . . were probably meant to help the
deceased speak in the afterlife, experts said.

                                    NYTimes

Glossa of gold foil/Ace up your sleeve. 

Once you get there, where you’re going,

you’ll have to make your case.

In Christian-town, you’re de facto in or out.

Tongue of dust. Nothing much anyway

to say. No

 honey words spread on the darling’s nipples.

Licked sticky off lips. Words

spun from filigreed threads, whisper thin,

warm-moisting an ear.  

Hear me out, wait.

What I think I meant. After all,

after all, will I be saved?

Susan Porterfield

Susan Azar Porterfield's three books of poetry include In the Garden of Our Spines, Kibbe (Mayapple Press) and Dirt, Root, Silk, which won the Cider Press Review Editor’s Prize. Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Barrow Street, Mid-American Review, North American Review, Nimrod, Rhino, Puerto del Sol, Poetry Ireland Review, Ambit, and elsewhere. She is the editor of Zen, Poetry, the Art of Lucien Stryk (Ohio UP) and has written on poetical subjects for Poets & Writers, The Writer’s Chronicle, Translation Review. She is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Counsel Award for Poetry.

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