Spoken Tip-Of-The-Tongue

I speak like a native:
The white barbarian
With an axe in my tongue,
Forked and twisted silver;
Punctuation - art-pierced -
Slipping into the split.

Pink slave to the curl and the roll,
The wave and the click and the tsk,
The cluck, and the bite of the cat -
Push against the roof and the cheek.

Making sounds more palatable with words
Like guardian snails trapped in my mouth:

All shells and slimy feet,
My mother tongue slips out.