by Charles R. Ervin

By the time

you could peer

upwards

by yourself,

toward my lengthy

field of vision,

I understood the

glisten and smirks

comprised of each

vivacious rod and cone.

Then superbly deaf,

as if time had stopped,

I opened

my mouth a little wider.

It was swept

across with hue

of autumn breezes

and tongues fumbling

through two rows

of skeletal turrets,

sluggishly

peeling across

the

jagged roof

of my mouth,

far softer

than

sand dunes in

photographs.