Featured Poem: “Soap Licker,” by Durian Gourd

I did it

I tasted your vanity’s

forbidden fruit.

I opened the vapid emoji hatch,

produced the most violent tongue from my toolbox.

And now I’m contrite.

I use it to lick a new conscience

a bar of Dove soap

floating in space on the kitchen sink.

Even kings fall to their knees.

A way to preserve our dignity

the regal mouths

that sentence others to death by description.

I hang prostrate, showering in the clean

moral, physical, there’s heat in the water

with the bitter taste of my

fallible tongue.

Soon my mouth will age in reverse to

its former grace: chromely pearls.

The negative years brush my teeth,

my mouth first becomes virgin

until it shifts to oh so simple,

non-verbal, and finally:

turns to the teet,

punishment for everything

I said.