invented languages
             after diane seuss 

i open my mouth & a bucket 
of ice comes out. there must be a way
to admit i was once a paper bag
full of ripening bananas. 
take all the trips you want,
your belly button will still 
be waiting like a push-pin. 
when i sleep on your tongue i always hear
exactly what you really wanted to say
which was, "i love you too,
i love you too, i love you too."
why do we deny ourselves the sugar bowl?
instead i take the ice & make
a dialect only we will understand.
here is your tall glass of lemonade. here
is your summer. let's not be hasty though
there is time to come to dislike
each other's breath. for now,
let's be the lexicon of dust.
from between my teeth a new thread
emerges. one i can use to tie 
all the birds to the ground for the night.
under this moon, no words will go missing.
we will remember every ocean 
we've ladeled fish from to make
children out of. i want again
the kind of speech 
the burns down row houses.
dark of a good collision. 
do you really want me to talk?
because i will talk & talk until 
i am deep in the tongues of moss
& soil & water & you will be there
wondering about how i heard your dreams
so loud & clean. i have a daguerreotype
of all your musings. you eat ice
with your fingers.