how the tongue speaks
December 7, 2009
a tongue. how does it speak? it wags, it wiggles, touches the teeth and palate against which the voice vibrates from the throat. depths of which are invisible, dark, the unknown.
what about the nonverbal? how we spoke before words and sounds were formed, bengali syllables resounding of my roots, their many origins and places beneath chocolate soil. so much is unspoken; even the body silences itself, a pig plugged up with cool mud, unexpressed.
how far back into sound, into color, into flavor, will this tongue take me? how deeply are these roots enjoined in earth’s crust? there is a ball of blue light stuck in my throat; sound is absorbed there, disallowed exodus. i feel it spinning, tossing, bouncing against my vocal chords, rolling over all i was told not to say. like yarn, the unraveling is slow, unpredictable.
i take one end of the yarn, the one loose end i can find, pull it from my mouth and see its electric blue between my fingers. i tie this to the base of an orange tree, walk away from the grove in which i was born, leaving a thread of cotton memory behind me.
© 2009 tahminah zaman
