A Dentist Tries His Hand at Poetry

Brent Fisk

First, numb your pages. Have a mint
on your tongue and keep your nose hairs trimmed.
Ideas will come like sleep, catch you unaware—
a sudden scrawl of pen across a legal pad.
Do ideas have sound? A scrape of tool,
the high whine of a drill?

In the parking lot wrens occupy
a shopping cart lodged in the junipers.
What is there to write about, my fingers
always in a stranger’s mouth? My secretary
in the bright yellow lobby, a smile pure Muzak,
dust motes dancing through the light.

Perhaps as she unbends
paper clips, doodles on memo pads, she’ll daydream
of dentists, hot sex in the linen closet, laughing
gas cracking up the rubber tree.
Goldfish swim upside down in circles
collecting flaked food and stray thoughts.

Tell me why you grind your teeth, why you fail
to floss. Are bodies buried in your basement?
Does a mistress snore on a vibrating bed? Hold the cotton
close and don’t panic at the sight of blood.
Wait at least an hour before you eat
your regrets. Some days I drill holes where I shouldn’t,
fill molars with radio signals, dumb down wisdom teeth.

I wait for a Tuesday I’ll remember forever,
the day the police find the tooth fairy in my trunk,
mason jars of milk teeth beside her.
I’ll barricade the door, turn the nitrous on full blast,
and with one little bent mirror,
eyeball you from behind my desk.

© Prick of the Spindle 2007