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Eat Book

for Salman Rushdie

Ernest Toller, an antifascist German author and playwright, was arrested in 1933 by the Nazis and forced to eat one of his books.

—Newspaper Item

Eating our words, we find

ourselves face-to-face

with realities we could only

guess at before, the bitter

taste of metaphor staining

our tongues like blood ballooning

aortas into comic-book dialogue

bereft of all distinctions.

There is nourishment

to be gained from narrative

and simile, from truth spread

thin as peanut butter all the more

palatable, sticking to mouth’s

wonder-struck roof, embedding itself

between the teeth of lies, annoyingly

beyond tongue’s tangled reach

but things we need to say

catch in our own teeth

if we hold them in too long

disallowing the natural propensity

of nature to seek its own level

abhorring vacuums sucked from our guts

by words sharp as bayonets, the turning

away of each tiny, perfect ear.