I pause Duolingo to eat an apple
In the middle of committing nouns
to memory, the texture of crisp
in my mouth—
I eat the fruit, & its name, a neuron
in my brain already busy
matching the two. The trick
is to repeat, and repeat until imprinted
on each memory of a thing:
its name— The wind blows & balks
against my lips unaware
of the cargo it’s made to carry.
How the tongue rises
to touch the roof of its dwelling
split second before it speaks
of itself—
Hungry, I cram all the names
for ocean, the earth of my mouth
bracing for rain—
Vismai Rao’s poems appear or are forthcoming in the Indianapolis Review, RHINO, Rust + Moth, Salamander, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Parentheses Journal, SWWIM, & The Shore. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the Orison Anthology. She lives in India.