Philomela’s tongue says

you could mistake grief for a diamond

the way it shines when cut into, like fish

eyes in a boat’s drain. The eyes fly

into death seeing everything: the cloud

of alcohol in Sagittarius B2, the ten

billion-trillion-trillion carat diamond

in Centaurus, the soul swimming through

air with its tie hanging silver beneath it

like a kite string. But Philomela’s tongue

does not die. Shards of memory fall through

her, finding muscle at the shore where blood

meets vein, cutting the string that’s kept

her sanity tied to the root. In its place,

mute swans lie dormant beneath frozen

lakes of scar. Tereus says she cannot say

what happened. She says silence writhes

inside the walls of truth, like a fox thrashing

hot in a hound’s jaws, or a riled fly, frantic

to escape the hand that carries it to safety.