Inadvertently I passed the border of her teeth and swallowed

her agile tongue. It lives inside me now, like a Japanese fish. It

brushes against my heart and my diaphragm as if against the walls

of an aquarium. It stirs silt from the bottom.

She whom I deprived of a voice stares at me with big eyes

and waits for a word.

Yet I do not know which tongue to use when speaking to

her—the stolen one or the one which melts in my mouth from an

excess of heavy goodness.