drinking hemlock

at first the words

were stone in my mouth

silent, heavy, unyielding

you pressed a coin

into my palm—

thirty for betrayal,

or thirty for truth?

now the choice burns:

to open my eyes

and let the imperfect syllables fall,

or to seal them shut

and sip the bitter draught

that keeps the poem flawless

but forever unborn

better, perhaps,

to stumble in speech

than to die with silence

curled like a serpent

around the tongue