Pearls

The words were bare and unashamed
before the world's first poet
traded them for favours in a secret cave;

newborn words that seared the air,
words that writhed and soared and leapt,
he slipped between a maiden's thighs

and buried there. Time does not record
the poet's name, who wrought this wrong,
whose tongue became a leash,

whose bucking lovesong tamed her hips.
The adjectives he whispered, clothed her with their hide
as they died upon his lips.