Difficult Speech: Welcome
Make up your mind to overcome this so-called impossibility of
pronouncing the B, M, N, P, and W.
—Arthur Prince, The Whole Art of Ventriloquism

Come all you periwinkles and brilliantines,
carpet-weavers and voluptuaries,
lift your tympanums, brandish your vegetables,
pinch your caps, forestall your equipods—
betimes, I virtuoso and hymnotize, unmoor
my intimate diva, pop my marrow, and offer
this humble fantasia, my solfeggio and psalm.

Oops, I’m tongue-tubbed. Before your very louvers,
my vintage but glimmers. Carpentered, I’m
back to first cube. Behind my fast gasp—flat
effervescence. My friends, I’m unbearded,
I’m all a-clam. I’ve invited my best
bosom forward, but, dear loves and alarums,
fops and beauties, for this furbelow, I’m mute.

Copyright © 2007 Molly Tenenbaum All rights reserved
from Beloit Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission