From Wrinkles: Quirk-e Collected Writings Volume Four 2009
The umbilical cord is severed, and replaced by the demands of the oral realm for animal needs, various acquired addictions, and verbalization. A gaping, ravenous, salivating maw. Use it and survive, bond to caregivers, learn about yourself and your world. A lifetime of use. Open wide for tasting, slaking thirst and hunger. Pull what you need or want in with sucking, sipping, biting, chewing, gulping, gnashing, and gnawing. Eat grass, dirt, each other on a mountain top. Mounds of food in a lifetime. Sometimes you will gag, spit up, sputter, push everything outward with projectile vomiting. Into the trap, goes nipples, spoons, fork, fingernails, straws, pills, gum, and chopsticks. The mouth can learn to discern a good taste of wine or tolerate rotgut. Some of your mouths quake from an onion or rock out with jalapeño. Have a soda pop burp, a garlic belch.
It is a human condition to put up with teething, drooling, tooth fairy teeth, more teeth, orthodontia, wisdom teeth. Minty restaurant toothpicks, brushing, flossing, gargling, cavities, periodontal disease, broken teeth, root canals, extractions, bridges, and false teeth. Say it, don’t spray it. Do I swallow or spit? Sociopaths are hocking it up on the street.
A mouth can hide behind a hand, a veil, a mustache, or lipstick. Purse the lips or pout, stick out that pink tongue. Lips become chapped, or fat lip can be violently made. Ugly sores on the lip reveal how life is treating you. Movie star lips. Lips tracing the flesh of a lover, or the soft sweet skin of a baby in your arms. Vapid air kisses. Lips craving a kiss. Think of a kiss, soft or hard, wet or dry, in passion, dispassionate, probing tongue, gnashing teeth, vampire teeth. Bite me. Chortle, choke, snore, gasp for breath, sigh, meditate on the inhaled Om or the exhaled Shanti. Cold teeth chattering. Teeth chattering in fear. Blow out vapour clouds in frosty winter air. A dry old mouth. Trench mouth. Drain the bottle dry. Drag, puff, bogart, float a series of smoke rings around your head . . . Maybe you like smoking better than food and need it so much more. You old whore of a mouth.
Is that mouth full enough? It is the repository of sound and words. Read life into a musical instrument, mouth be the truth trumpeter. From the mouths of babes and sages. Whisper, whoop, whistle, whine, and wail; can anyone hear me? Cuss, chant, pray, sing, speak in tongues, tongue in cheek, tongue twisters, out of billions of mouths and around the world. Sarcasm, cynicism, gut splitting stand up that can transport you high as a kite. I am as good as my word. Lie, laugh, scorn, scream, keen, gossip, giggle, gushing, and inspire as you beseech the heavens . . . And damn damn dammit. Zip it. Hush. Shut up. Swallow your tongue. No you can’t ever cram things you wish you hadn’t said back in; and if you haven’t made your peace with whomever, you should as it’s too late when you’re dead. So much work left for you to do, mouth. We better keep up our strength . . . Let’s see what’s for dessert.
