Amanda,
According to pediatricians, when I was much younger, there was a problem with my tongue; the frenulum was “far too short” and just, “had to be cut,” so that later in life I would speak like a normal person…
So then – as a teenager with impacted wisdom teeth about to go in for surgical removal, the doctors decided, “yes, this should be a fine time indeed to get rid of that pesky frenulum.” After surgery… Well… I’m sure you can imagine – 4 teeth pulled and a piece of my tongue removed.
Of the few people that notice that I do have a slight lisp with my voiceless dental sibilants (in particular the letter ‘s’) you not only did not make a joke of it but instead showed me how much you loved it. Every /s/ I spoke seemed to pour out of my mouth and into some aural erogenous zone that would elicit from you some kinetic necessity to reach out and kiss me. You are the mistress to my lisp…
My Lisp’s Mistress
For Amanda Blair
Her fingers skim the skin
of my jaw she says,
“something in your smile,
some – thing perhaps – slid
from your tongue?”
She focuses, indexing
the sulcus of my
chin and says, “some
unveiled vestige of
Phoenician history –
a sin passed when
unused, unpoured
forth from that soft
palate,” her thumb
tip traces incisivus
superioris fastening
phalanx with philtrum
sealing orbicularis oris
to colonize my alveolar
ridge she sighs, “mine!
My salix lips –
my sibilant hush,
my lips-sentry
of Semitic shin,
polydeuces of Greek
Sigma and San as
unspeakable siblings,”
she presses sedulous,
against my pursed mouth
leaning into my cheek,
collapsing into a respiring
command, and whispers,
“I want to hear you hiss…”
-...Running From Zero...+ 