What burns, I wanted to ask, thinking not of skin or bones, but of the heart. I hold my tongue.
It is reported the average adult has ten secrets.
The tongue weighs just over two ounces. Two ounces in your hand could be tennis ball or hard-boiled egg or two house sparrows or one peach-faced lovebird, which would be enough. How heavy my tongue is when it must be moved to say what I do not want to say.
Athena Kildegaard's sixth book of poems, Prairie Midden (Tinderbox Editions), won the 2023 WILLA Literary Award for Poetry. Her poems have been published in Beloit Poetry Journal, Ecotone, RATTLE, North American Review, Colorado Review, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere. www.athenakildegaard.com
