CYNTHIA ALESSANDRA BRIANO
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The Mouth-Carriers
We carried the gold between our teeth,
the silver beneath our tongues,
the treasure in the pockets of our lungs.
We passed it on to each other from breath to breath
like oxygen—the fireflower kiss,
the cloudburst cuento. We’ve breathed it
onto the leaves of our gardens, and it is now
in the seeds.
For centuries, our wordless labor extracted.
For centuries, our voiceless toil.
Now we open our mouth-carriers
like chests of gold.
We are again the royal scribes. We are again
the speakers of beautiful words, their unfolding
fragrant like a scroll in flower.
We unwind the words
from beneath the binding
over our ribcages.
We melt the silver into the light over the sky.
We melt the gold into the saying.