Tongue

By Alex Quintanilla

The tongue is a book
is a door
is a time machine.

And Herophilus[1] in Alexandria
what did he know of this?
He who gazed not out but in
to the body, compelled not
by the whole but by the part?

            ***

The woman cannot find
her tongue, cannot use her brain
to make it dance. She was
a pastor, quick witted
and this loss is hard to bear.
Her family draws close to her
hospital bed as she stares,
bewildered, stranded in her mind
her tongue holding nothing
but air.

            ***

As I test her oculomotor nerve,
she squeezes my free hand, her
eyes searching– beautiful, wild,
hungry, like the waves of Reynisfjara.
Her daughter tells me she thinks
this is a curse moving fast through
her mother’s body. I know little
of curses but much of loneliness.
Even then, I could see her begin
to learn the language of unspoken
yearning, the language of unbounded
desolation. To taste the lull and
urgency in the silver morning
as only few of us can. 

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[1] Greek physician known for being the first to scientifically dissect cadavers. He was the first to describe the hypoglossal nerve, that which is responsible for tongue motor function.

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Alex Quintanilla is a Mexican-American doctor and writer. She graduated from Rice University with a BA in English then spent a year teaching in Spain. Afterward she attended medical school and completed residency in Texas. She’s currently a pediatrician in Houston where she shares her love of reading with patients whenever she can. Her poems have been published in Scalawag and The Florida Review’s Aquifer.