VIETNAMESE BITE Poem by Jane Gibian

in your mouth you roll and taste
the classifier for fruit, shaping
the rounded rising syllable
also used for fruit-shaped objects:

a ball
a bomb
the earth

and run your tongue
along the sharp edges
of the classifier for objects
with flat surfaces:

a letter
a photograph
the wall

feel then the graceful classifier
for leaf-shaped and leaf-thin things:
it is the leaf itself