easter egg hunt

i cut my tongue into seven pieces
& slipped each inside a colorful
plastic egg. hiding them carefully
around the halls of my high school
i waited, hoping to see someone 
open them. at the farmer's market 
i used to watch the butcher 
spill tongues into jars. cow
& pig & goat. all the talking 
a heart can do. i would picture
the animals roaming around empty-mouthed.
now i know they don't distribute meat
piecemeal. the animal is felled 
like a great tree. not me though.
i go bit by bit. watched in the mirror
as my tongue grew back cyclically 
after i severed it. it is not 
a murderable beast. pale blue eggs.
telling the world what i need.
sitting in a bucket of spit. 
this is when i learned i would 
not get anything i asked god for.
better to dismantle the wanting machine
than to keep telling the body no.
finally, by the water fountain
i saw a boy open an egg. empty. 
nothing inside. i remembered the tomb
is supposed to be vacant but i wonder 
what it means that a god comes
to collect himself & not the tongues
of his beasts. what is a miracle
but a kind of plastic. nests for 
ghost birds. eating jelly beans
by swallowing them whole. there is
not enough sugar to make the day right.
i decide to open an egg myself.
find no tongue inside. just a miniature
of me screaming. close the egg to put away
that horrible sound. burry the egg 
behind the pine tree & tell no one.
feel grateful i was not the one
to discover an empty tomb. i would
have filled it with tongues.
i have always been prone to crowding
a silence. i would love to try to furnish one
as big as a divine. instead, i will
stick to eggs. i wait for my tongue
to grow back again.