Xerostomia

the Sahara is 3.5 million square miles
it has nothing on my mouth.
my mouth is a gated expanse.
its balusters composed
of yellowed bone.

i’m not this way on purpose.
when i was young
sand filled my mouth.
as i grew the grains
turned to stars.
they stick to the roof of my mouth,
immolate every toothsome word.

a foreign tongue 
slithers in this desert.
it rattles inside the dry heat.

a popcorn kernel chipped my
front tooth and now i can whistle.
that is why the night howls
and that is why a little light gets through.

my mouth is so old and so hot
that all the words have dried up.
one day i will have a new mouth
and with it i will speak

words that you have never heard
but when you hear them you will know me
because words are the mirages
of the deserts in which they shimmer.