Ventriloquism for Dummies
       

Oh, I did most of it wrong, having been
the puppet so long—a childhood parroting
truisms I pushed around my dinner plate.

It was hard to jam my fist inside, but then
I knew how one could say it fit like a glove.
Though how to pick from my secret selves,

or a single face to match its form. That voice
inside—like and unlike the one on my tongue—
a child buried between my ribs? A limbolocked

auntie settling her tithe? A dormant
volcano? The instructor advised practice
at home, as I did as a teen—gritting teeth

and throwing my voice against slammed
doors or the shower's heavy hush. Alone,
I'd hold a finger to my mouth as if warning

of an infant asleep on the couch. It's hard
to force air deep within the throat (pretend
to cough) or through your nose. A lipless

alphabet is seven letters short; substitute
"ooh" for "w," "da" or "geh" for "b."
Dear slack-jaw dummy with a deviated

septum: I cannot convince myself that you
or I am completely alive. There, there. I'll
stroke your silken hair and hum our favorite

Beatles tune. Listen to us: a tractor-trailer
jack-knifes on the snow-slick pass and a Pinto
skids toward it. My lips are snow, yours the pass.

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Copyright © 2018 Emari DiGiorgio All rights reserved
from Girl Torpedo
Agape Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission