Almost like Kissing
(for Rumah Lulut)
The way you eat a river snail,
she says, is you put the shell to
your mouth, and your tongue
over half the opening.
Blow in hard then
breathe in, quickly
and the body will slide
into your mouth. She says,
its almost like kissing.
Consider the bowl
of steaming black shells i
in front of me, fresh picked
from the banks of the Rejang River.
Consider the stories I could tell
about the things they made me eat
in my two weeks in the jungle.
Cosnider the way she’s watching
You right now, which you can’t tell
them about because you can’t describe it.
Close your eyes. Mould your lips
around the opening like a whistle: the
sharp edge digs into my tongue, and
snail trails down your arm.
Try to ignore the muddy taste of
the grey snail flesh as it goes in your mouth.
Swallow it like all the stories she’s been
telling you, steamed in myths and half-
truths I haven’t begun to pull apart.
She asks you, how?
Consider her raised eyebrow.
The careful tone of that one syllable.
But I think the look on my face
