Enamel; Or, My Father Propped His Head on the Discovery of the Wheel
I could smell horseradish and taste my palate. I couldn’t say
pillow yet, but I could hear it. I could drag a pillow down the hallway
like a cavewoman by the hair, a pillow cavewoman with pillowcase hair.
My father took the cavewoman from my hands and dug her heels into her
teeth.
Dentin; Or, Before My Father Painted Everything Red
My mother painted everything green. She fell like a new form of old
rain. My father danced beneath her with tongue exposed. He licked her
pure bones. Then he licked his proud teeth.
Pulp Cavity; Or, Honesty
Mother asked for his where it comes from and what he does, or
something. Father said a word called honesty, which sounded like a
piñata, and so mother bat at him until his teeth stained the
floor. Then she sat back and watched me create a shirt-basket with my
pajama top and scramble for the teeth-shaped candy.
Gingival Crevice; Or, The Crumbling
Mother entered the apartment, got down on her knees, bent her face
towards the windowsill, bit into the wood ledge, and lifted her
big-boned body off the ground with her teeth and the balls of her feet.
Gingiva; Or, Buoyant
A boy picked up an ant. A baby corpse bobbed on the water. A
sober woman smiled though her heart wanted out of her face. My mother
ground her teeth to stubs. My brother had no teeth. I bit the ant in
half.
Periodontium; Or, A Near Death Experience
“Hey, crow, hey, you motherfucker, I’m resting
here,” my father said, as he kicked at the bird that wasn’t
actually a crow and tried falling back to sleep on yesterday’s
pulled teeth.
Pulp Canal; Or, My Parents, After the Amputations
The armless man folded his stumps into the legless woman’s
armpits. The legless woman tucked her stumps into the armless
man’s waistband. They interlocked their remaining teeth and
danced two-headed.
Cementum; Or, The Last Breakfast
I poured my parents’ cremains into their favorite cereal
bowls as instructed in their refrigerator wills. One tooth fell from
each urn as prophesied in their wallpaper diaries. I strung the teeth
on cow leather and wore them around my neck. As I walked, the teeth
beat against each other, but also slowly chewed into my chest cavity.