Scouringly sweet, sour tastes on
tongues — filiform papillae

holding on to molecules, clinging
to succor so tart, it’s hard. Circuitry

querying: surrender to this sharpness
or spit out the soft mess?

Busted red blob, bright juice, pips
still witness on lips, cheeks.

The outside coming in, from
sun to nerves, touch me.

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Caris Uşoară is a disabled artist, scholar, and emerging poet. She lives, creates, and rests on ancestral, traditional, and contemporary Dakota homelands (Dakota County, MN). These are her first published poems.