<hosea's "mouthpiece"> 2003-03-30.10:18 p.m. Mouthpiece Chris Hosea The yarn heart we inherited shut up spring afternoons with clock hands threatening to point out a smudge on our knowledge was a scratchy booby prized best by those who lost it. Wishing for lemon without glue, we're caught in a pause that assuages as though one could search by standing still, eyes peeled for a grid which doesn't leak, a berth snug enough to keep the wet rush out. Inkblot shadows mar the counterpane used some days as a cloak sitting alone with old albums feeding on photographs of knee-boots, golden hair, cars with fins, the long white veil and crewcut from a wedding of relatives, pictures of a groundbreaking where the honeymoon should be: no palms no ukuleles but scissors ribbon shovel dirt, the pencilled remarks blurred. We blink at the living room as if about to grab a wax crayon mark the level of Dad's whiskey and take less than we need. Someone else's ants have found a home in our loose pants. We try to find strength in painted numbers, leftovers in iceboxes of marble and glass. Each address is visited, one by one. There are always enough taxis to go around and around, and we do until dizziness itself is a kind of shelter, the shell of a tortoise never quite certain of the whereabouts of rabbit or finish line, but counting time against a ticking from inside, amid a weary cacophony of different drummers. And after mother throws salt into mouths open from shock we aren't given extended twilights; there is no soft duration in which to find gifts of wheat. Never enough time, even, for a game of ding-dong-ditch, running running under bare trees that tear at a milky sky. From alphabets tacked on the margins of remembered classrooms, we patch low conversation, closer to each other, hands slipping in and out of pockets. back /& forth /& frosting names are often sad