NovPAD catchup #10: Mentire

Nov 10 prompt: “use a foreign word” in the title of your poem or in your poem.

My response, late in coming, is kind of a toss-off, but was kind of fun to write once it came to me. Whatever it is, it is here, below:

Mentire

Ital. v. intrans., meaning to travel
across the bright spot in the corner, to tuck
the news under one's arm, to greet
strangers in the voice of a nightengale,
to whorl around one's finger another's
sweet breath, to gaze along the edge
of the proscenium and disguise the audience as animals. First

          known use: 1349,
          Siena, Dr. Alonzo Fideli's instructions
          to his gardner. From the Latin mentere

meaning to fold into three parts
on one's lap concealing a weapon of
immense power or a bouquet of dandelions. First

          known use: 0 A.D., a
          passing remark from Pontius Pilate to his
          bathroom attendant about the state of his wife's

vagina. From an Indo-Iranian word the sound and
sense of which has been lost, but
which can be approximated to mean to make the sound

your mother makes when she believes she is
alone and examines the breadth of her dreams in such
a way that it seems as if the prism in her hand
refuses to release light, directing it instead
to play its last hand in the suit of a heart.