Veins Below the Word

The hygienist's light, a harsh sun

in the cave of my mouth. "Lift it," she said,

and I did. This pink, wet muscle, usually

a blur of motion, now paused, unled.

And there, revealed, a landscape

I’d rarely truly seen. Blue veins,

a map beneath a soft, wet cape

of tissue, stretched out, thin as rains.

The frenulum, a fine, tight thread,

a mooring for this restless, speaking thing.

A pulse, I think, or just the blood's soft spread.

So much beneath the words we bring

to air. So much living, quiet, there,

a moist, strange world, beyond all common care,

until that beam of light, a sudden stare

on a part of me I'd left unseen, unprepared.