stone

There's a stone that you hold
in your mouth, in speech.
It doesn't exist: it is
round and flat
where the riven and cleft
streams and rivers of words
you have clearly outpoured
all your life have rounded it.
Sound as fact: on the sides
and top, and flattened beneath,
this curve, that opening drop
- all the nicks and tics
of consonant cut, and swells
and upwells and fulls of vowels,
the shortened stops and tucks,
the pieces of sense that don't
show up, and never are missed
by familiar ear - are down
to the shape
they did not teach,
when they taught you here. But

say,

I can tell where you're from,
can't I?

And maybe in part
what I think of you! All by the stone

which you carry in mouth,
to shape all your words around
what's true.