Tonight's Poet Corner: The Reformation Of Speech

The Reformation Of Speech
by Belinda Roddie

eventually, language becomes
too sweet and too thick
on the tongue
and words begin to weigh
a ton behind aching teeth
given meaning before
they have a chance
to be born, given
a purpose they do not
have a say in

when we get to that point
in communication, we
will mostly speak
in static, in buzzing
dial-up tones, trying
to restart some process
in our addled brains
where all the holes are
filled with rich and creamy
sensationalism

the fake is real
and the real is fake
the facts have grown legs
where their arms should be
we have mutated the truth
to the point that no linguist
can spare it, and the streams
of our vocabulary run dry
our observations reduced
to the glaring obsolescence
of a singular noun