Furious and Implacable Judgment by Brenton Woodward

YOU still call on her now, not expecting a reply but, out of a fear that she'll feel abandoned if you don’t. It’s difficult, not hearing from her, nor knowing how she’s doing; nor how it would be if something did happen to her, whether her parents would tell you. Whether anyone would tell you.
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The girls wandered the abandoned house, moving through the hallway upstairs. Wooden planks sagged beneath their feet, groaned and gnawed as they passed from one room to the next. As they inched forward, they imagined the old house giving way, and falling through the decaying floorboards until they hit sodden earth beneath them.

I am a river.
Two homes
And everything in between.
I want to wrap my mouth around a beach
At each end.
I wonder if the salt tastes the same.
I wonder if the boats go down like
Fiz Whiz or Prozac.
I want my fingers to find their way into villages
Not flood nor puddle
But stream.

It’s the photo that speaks,
That generates words,
Words trapped in the tongue,
In the recess right under,
Right under the langue.
It tries to make words,
Some boxes of sound,
That jumble and roll
And stumble
And frown.
But to be trapped in the mouth is a difficult thing,
Both wet and both dry,
A stifling ring.
A mouth that says yes,
A mouth that says no,
A lip that cries maybe,
A sound that says lo.