Fables for One

The best strawberry I ever ate was a garnish.
It spread inside my mouth
like a little lie,
molars doing their best
truth, truth, truth
while the juices crept sugary into the crevices
where I store my words.

The sweet accessory
stuck itself to my vocabulary
my red becoming redder
and reddest,
the only red.

Later, I was touching names,
and licking my fingers,
poking around in my teeth for adjectives,
wanting to tell you
how I spent my day alone,
but finding only the same other
surrounding every crown,
the taste in my mouth all like tiny seeds.

It was true
what I said about the strawberry
but I spread it like a little lie.