the floors of trick vocabulary
hide trapdoors of meaning
any word can fall through
and come out the other side
altered,undecipherable,confused
nobody to translate
frustrated?
don't be
this was supposed to happen
one day you will return to us
your tongue reuniting
with the roof of your mouth
and you will begin again
to softly click
your whereabouts
to the rest of us waiting for you
hidden in the shaded thick
miles upriver
..the place
where we all first sang together
songs that flew off the tips of our small crisp tongues
tongues we stole from the painted birds.