My mouth can’t have
what it wants when it wants it,
an afternoon that yields
the taste of its longing,
a suck for its suck,
the right word clearly spoken.
At night its tongue
probes the hammered walls
with a soft claw
for the missing ingredient.
Far down the gorge
the mad handler
both it beats it forward
and reins it back.
It thrashes and digs
for a surface
that, when it comes,
leaves it lapping at air
and forms like glass
over the swallowed demand:
“Give it to me;
Give it to me now.”