Bite Your Tongue

When a pet owner says the dog in heat
keeps herself clean, that is code
for a tongue doing things we don't repeat.
When political ads talk about working
families, this is code for paint,
the way it can gloss over the crack
in racist wood. I look forward to Mondays,
the one day I can solve a crossword puzzle.
Other days I work my way
through the Sudoku
book my daughter left behind.
If you have a place in your house
called the puzzle room, that is code
for wealth. What you cannot solve
is everything else. I can't stop August
high tides from stalling low sedans.
How often they drive deeper
than they should, spraying the vomit
of river water onto manicured lawns.
I can't keep guns
off the street. But I keep my dog
in the yard. She's in heat. And the male
next door barks as he leaps
to look over our failing fence.
Every word in this poem is code
for something else. I bite my tongue
and taste my mother's voice.

Beth Oast Williams’s poetry has been accepted for publication in Leon Literary Review, SWWIM Everyday, Pirene's Fountain, Wisconsin Review, Glass Mountain, GASHER, Fjords Review, and Rattle's Poets Respond, among others. Her poems have been long-listed for Palette Poetry's Sappho Prize and nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Her first chapbook, Riding Horses in the Harbor (Finishing Line Press), was published in 2020. She serves on the board of The Muse Writers Center in Norfolk, Virginia. You can find more of her work at BethOastWilliams.com.