Shipwreck

What is a man’s mouth but a dark licorice island?  A secret atoll of black licorice, cigars, red wine, and tonight’s roast turkey.  His oral history.  Afterwards I thought of men who die in wars or terrible fires, their faces lost beyond recognition.  Isn’t it your teeth that tell them who you were?  Then I thought of the dead Pharaohs, subjected by embalmer-priests to the ritual Opening of the Mouth.  What sort of shipwrecked woman dares plunder such an island?

It was Joanne.  She came into the kitchen, a crescendo of laughter and coffee cups rising behind her, then fading away.  She went to me without a word.  Her sweatered breasts brushed my starched white shirt. 

Then she did it, plunged her sudden tongue in my mouth, entering me like a man enters a woman.  I blushed.  She gave me a crooked smile, co-conspirators now, then turned and left in a swirl of skirts and boots.

In her wake, I heard the wooden whine of tall, frothy, crashing ships.