What happens first is sound.

No.

What happens first

is the image of the sound. It blooms

on the backs of my eyelids, a picture

of your lips, pushing words

into the coils of my ear,

corkscrewing deeper, your breath spiraling

into my awakening, words like berries, 

bumpy as tongues they tumble, plump, plosive.

When you speak I want to eat the words you say.

I want my mouth to fill 

with the round firmness of them. To press my own lips

against the surface tension

of the skin stretched over their sweetness.

I want to feel them trembling, ready,

against my tongue.

I want them to                                        

pop!

like sun-warm cherry tomatoes

like near-bitter blueberries

to pop and then slither, 

spread, melt on the tip where we sense sweet, 

mellow on the back

where we savor

rivers of flavor

rising, flowing, sliding

down my throat

down into my body down

into the pit of my belly and deeper

deeper

until your words have touched the places

I have wanted them to touch

since first you spoke them, and then I wake

and I wake

hungry

Jennifer Maloney is a poet, playwright and performer based in Rochester, NY. A former sex worker and a sober addict, read her work at Anti-Heroin Chic, SHIFT: A Publication of MTSU Write,  Aaduna.org, Ghost City Review, Celebratingchange.blog, The Pangolin Review, Memoryhouse Magazine and other literary publications including several anthologies. Jennifer stays grateful so she can stay sober, and still feels all the things.