Tanka Trio for the Inside of My Mouth

An apple keeps its
bones clustered in dense flesh, so
it’s strange to think of
the red pulp in my teeth which
I feel in times of fatigue.

No faerie wants these
dented relics wreathed in blood.
Though they’re rarely used
for good, I grip them tightly
and wake up with a bruised tongue.

In dreams, I sharpen
them on flint and slate, rattling
their cores. Sometimes they
chip; I suck on the fragments
and hope they find their way back.

 
Rita Mookerjee's poetry is featured or forthcoming in Berfrois, Lavender Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, Occulum and others. Her critical work has been featured in the Routledge Companion of Literature and Food, the Bloomsbury Handbook to Literary and Cultural Theory, and the Bloomsbury Handbook of Twenty-First Century Feminist Theory. She is a PhD candidate at Florida State University specializing in contemporary Caribbean literature.