Beneath Speech

—She lay very still, looking up at the undersides of words.

Pink was pink all the way through, like any organ might be, 
plucked from the body and held quiet on a little tray—

Night was a starry dish. One side convex, one side concave.

This must be like winter for fish, she thought,
and all the nouns went seamless as ice and slightly opaque.

If she put out her tongue, she might stay there forever.

In the air, the smell of snow like bits of speech—may I
have a little word?, she wondered, because or so to cover me—