When the sun shall die

A poem

When the mighty sun shall be reduced

to a backyard fire pit,

tapering off — cracking and crying;

breathing out sparkling ash and sparks;

grudgingly lodging

her celestial bankruptcy,

maybe then, the tongue

and the tooth will make their peace

at last,

after an eternity of leaving together

as the boney and the meaty,

as the hard and the soft–

loathingly complementing each other,

for my grandmother’s tongue

did desperately search

for her lost set of teeth.

Maybe then, the accidental

bite will not scrape the tongue

anymore; maybe then,

the two contiguous

inner pipes would cease

mixing up the edible and

the breathable;

between the chewy and

the airy. Until then,

as Boris would have it,

that’s how the board breaks;

that’s how the deck shuffles;

that’s how the toss lands.

Halifax, 08.07.22