INSIDE THE MOUTH IS MORNING

By Jenny Berkel

I say nothing. I say
quiet in unbounded dawn.
I say silence in the mourning
dove with the dark-eyed
junco in the warble
of the blue-winged.
I put the trill and cant
of your sounds inside
my mouth. I say nothing.
I say quiet. I say silence.
I let my lashes fall back
onto my face inside
your song.

I say everything just
by lying there. White
sheets twist into nests.
Beside the window behind
the curtain shadows
our smaller selves flit through.
I say everything to open
ears, prickled skin, the crust
of beaded eye upon the pillow,
the uncaged cockcrow,
the aleatoric warble of
mourning, dark-eyed.

We sing it all
just by being there,
just by being here,
​we all sing it. 

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Jenny Berkel is a poet and singer-songwriter. Her interests include investigating how a poem is a song and a song is a poem. She has released two albums (Here on a Wire and Pale Moon Kid) and has another one forthcoming. Her debut chapbook, Grease Dogs, was published in June 2021 with Baseline Press, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Vallum, The Maynard, The Literary Review of Canada, and long con magazine, amongst others.