The silver caliper loomed over the mantle
and mumbled his name in a foreign language
(it could have been Turkish or Polish)
while he sat in a straight backed chair
and ate graham crackers by breaking them
into pieces with his strong yet supple lips
and sucking on the pieces until they grew soft
and pliant, dissolving into his saliva and
becoming paste like. Another bite
and he repeated the ceremony of breaking
and sucking and softening into paste.
The silver caliper didn’t speak for a moment,
looking on in consideration as he ate stale
graham crackers in a straight backed chair,
the crumbs caking on the sides of his
delicious mouth (which was exactly
twenty eight and eleven hundredths of
a centimeter in length) and falling in his lap.
Ants carried the crumbs in a long line
toward their wriggling nest. He looked at the
silver caliper again and, in seeing the screws
turning slowly, panicked. He placed the next
stale graham cracker on his bottom lip
(which protruded somewhat and was strong
and red) and he used one finger (the right
index finger) and he pushed it inside,
all at once, cutting the corners of his mouth.
The silver caliper snapped shut and screwed
tightly together. His mouth bled quietly in dismay.