thromboangiitis obliterans

inadvertently

Inadvertently I passed the borders of her teeth and swallowed her agile tongue. It lives inside me now, like a Japanese fish. It brushes against my heart and my diaphragm as if against the walls of an aquarium. It stirs silt from the bottom.

She whom I deprived of a voice stares at me with big eyes and waits for a word.

Yet I do not know which tongue to use when speaking to her--the stolen one or the one which melts in my mouth from an excess of heavy goodness.

Zbigniew Herbert, "Tongue."