“Ye soond loch a byrd,” some goon with a gloat
said of my junkyard dog lisp. On the phone

I can drop the tone into my deep throat;
hint of hard strokes, slow slides to steel and bone,

ending with stone-capped slivers, crisp and cracked.
But why? I love my lisp. It keeps saving

me from so much bad sex. Bullies react
to it right away. If my pronouncing,

“th,” gives you pause, then, “vo’chinch,” as Lilith
would say. No cocks to your splatter, buzzards

to your box. No, “rump-rimmed mortars/ well-hung
pestles,” for you, child; just those glib in myth

and tongue twisters. Unlike your clit, my words
tremble all strange and new under my tongue.

][][

NOTES:
Vo’chinch is a most useful Armenian word (the ancient language of mountain gods and high desert witches); sort of like the French, “Comme ci, comme ça,” it can mean anything from, “Damn, what an asshole,” to, “everything is hunky-dory,” depending on circumstance.