mouth museum

i only visit the mouth museum alone.
i like to carry a bag full of toothpicks 
& work when no guards are looking.
some of the mouths are alive & others are 
alive but in the past. 
there are mouths from the old world
& mouths from species that no longer
sing into the night. i stand inside coelacanth jaws.
they tell a story about the deep. i nest
in beaks, one by one. dodo & albatross.
thinning to a string to fit in the kiwi bird maw. 
the museum is often empty. when i see
another guest i know they are like me.
a person whose mouth betrays them.
every once in awhile there is a theft.
someone taking a new mouth 
all for themselves. i am not to be trusted
& so i have occasionally tried one on.
i walked into the bathroom wearing a bear.
i scared myself. all those teeth. how do 
they kiss? once, on the ride home from the museum
my partner called me & asked if i had ever
considered going on a silent retreat 
at a buddhist temple. i explained that i am
not buddhist though i think i might be
better off if i was. really, i am just a tongue 
turning the pages a script written 
on roast beef. some of the mouth in the museum
do not have tongues. i will bend down
& lend them mine. they'll whisper 
what they taste. i feel terrible taking it away.
there have been nights i stayed there too.
slept inside (you guessed it) the manatee mouth.
i felt briefly peaceful. like the world had
enough rice. i boil water. i boil teeth. 
i always go alone but maybe one day
i'll take someone with me. i have only seen
two people there together once.
they were not lovers. they were enemies.
they had come to put on carnivore mouths 
& devour each other. i did not stick around.