Teeth
They say that dreams of losing teeth
are about a power lost,
as if our half-moon row of folded forms — leather-hard,
enameled glaze — were snatched from us in the firing.
Isn’t it easy to think? that if only we had been given the chance
to set our jaw just so — then we could have controlled the kiln.
Still, there is something so powerful in the way a moose molar
unfolds, hiding nothing, its coiled roots exposed,
as if it knew it would be placed just so
against a fallen spruce.
Did it resist the fierce fire that freed its light from form?
Or did it merely fall, leaving its half-moon row
like a talisman, holding both sky and earth as if
the only way to hold everything is to be wholly in it all.
]]>