BUCCO-COLLE

This is your surgery: you slit the corners, shear the teeth, uncap the gums, stick out your tongue – and childhood appears. The urge to laugh takes hold of you, it’s shame. But how can you laugh in the dark? (Let’s open our eyes. Mouth to mouth, the eye fucks). You glue lips to lips, behind us you sew up the crack. I get it: all bonding is buccal. You tapped the scar with your fist and since then everything’s been moving, the mouth is talking. In the dark, the oracle is visual. The eye adjusts the chosen pieces. The hand plays tag with the glue and makes threads. The spider stuffs your uvula. It’s 8th grade, dry saliva. Childhood diphtheria is dead. We thought it was cured. But here it is. Our throats are full of it.

Renée PASSERON