Which came first? The egg

or the sperm.

The apple or the throat.

My throat closing

in on itself. Umma putting sweet yuja tea to my lips.

Saying, When the body is ill, the nectar drains first.

I speak having orphaned my mother

tongue. So of course I call her mother.

The purpose of the mouth is to echo. We call the palate a roof

for the silence of a collapsed house.

The body a vessel

for the world to pass through

disguised as sound. How come

my tongue dampens it

when I call back to the past?

The past is a world too, sharpness

declawed by time. Language

as a prosthetic.

Which came first, the meaning

or the moan.