You Are Shining Some Glory on Me by Innas Tsuroiya

You Are Shining Some Glory on Me

after Liz Phair
for Alif Ibrahim

She sings about tongue to help me picture one.
It’s true: until today I have forgotten about tongue
unless of salt-tasting during soup-making,
unless of its assistance to white lies.
It slicks you down. He pulls you back. How racy.
All my life, my majestic idleness, I have not
dreamed of purposeful movement. And yet,
I invite you for a saunter by the beach.
And yet, I love twirling in the kitchen to catch
a jar of spice, to plump in with an answer
intelligible in the brain when you pop up
a How was your day? text my way. And yet,
I resent the knavery this back pain is parading.
It’s true: until today I have forgotten about joy—
unless of unripe lines in my shyest verse,
unless of that which never arrives. It rolls way out.

I wake like tongue—of a dog, of a woman smitten.

Tags: innas tsuroiya