Fading Tongue

Words slip away, loose fish

sliding through my grasp.

On the screen, their shapes pile up,

unread, unanswered,

like mail from a house I once knew.

My tongue trips on old melodies,

stammering a language

that once rolled smooth,

now thick with rust.

Half the sentence vanishes,

leaving me holding a silence

heavy as the cracked glass

of the phone between us,

while my mother’s voice lingers

just out of reach.