The tongue controls the endgame of words formed in the tunnel between heart and brain.

It is a great manipulator, the gatekeeper of food and language.

It curls and uncurls, rolls words that love or lash.   Or claims neutrality like Switzerland.

Sometimes the tongue deceives and takes the shape of dinnerware:
“He or she speaks with forked tongue,” we say.

But what of the throat?

The throat is the tongue’s precursor.
It is a curving tunnel stretching from heart to  brain.

When mood clouds the celebrated heart, it mists the  brain with poisonous vapors.

Left to incubate, moods rot.

Or they coil, snake-like, await a victim.
Then cold winter slush slithers through the tunnel ignoring mediation,
spewing rattler venom and surprise.

Regurgitated poison is hard to take back.  Like rolling broken glass on the tongue.