Carnivora

Predators don’t go around showing their cutlery,
they will look through borrowed eyes into yours,
lend you milk. When I am ten years old
my mother and I revise my anatomy
into the appropriate schematics until I am fluent,
can take the nomenclature raw, like a glass of egg.
This is my mouth, furnished with new bone.
This is the hacienda between my thighs,
preparing to fold limbs from its walls
or fall lank with moon.
I work on saying no for years.
This word can refract
around the shell of an ear
into dual translation.
This word in a woman’s mouth
is spliced with mist.