When My Dentist Tells Me I Might Lose a Tooth
I think Finally—this is the perspective I’ve been looking for.
Not the tall guy with the drinking problem, who told me my teeth
were the most beautiful he’d ever seen. Or the other one
who tried to capture my smile with a song, or the third, in college,
who said his favorite thing about me was the symmetry of my incisors.
None of these men know me like Dr. Fillar. If they did,
they’d know I only have twenty-four teeth to fit my improbably small
mouth, and I spent years head-back, jaw as wide as it could go
while the hygienist tightened and rearranged wires and sent me home
with little packets of rubber bands I always forgot to use.
They were perfect, maybe, for a week. Now my two front teeth fight
against the metal bar glued behind them to anchor them in place,
wishful thinking of an orthodontist hoping to never, ever see me again, so—
when my dentist tells me I might lose a tooth, this is the perspective
I’ve been looking for.
My grandfather jokes that he should’ve looked in my grandmother’s mouth
before he married her, like a horse. He means this lovingly, of course.
When she died, her mouth was heavy with gold fillings.
For my mother, six years of braces and headgear, and for me—
generationally bad teeth plagued by the stupid men who compliment them.
***
Ethan Returned from New York City
with the common cold, symptoms of which we first thought
were allergies. Earlier that week, I’d stared at swatches of red
on a map of the Eastern seaboard—an unprecedented pollen count
for the autumn months. But as he coughed up more yellow,
contagious sick, time began to dwindle on my own open airways.
You know: Researchers found that they could match strangers
into family, roommates, lovers with startling accuracy
based on the overlapping qualities of their microbiomes.
I tell you this to say I’ve shared bacteria, viruses, and dead skin cells
with family, roommates, and a handful of shattered men;
even a group of strangers, briefly, once, who’d sworn off men and other women
(something I’ve never been particularly good at).
But no atmosphere has been quite as rich, and no air quite so clear
as that I breathe today while I wait for these shivers and chills.
Kaitlyn Crow (she/they) is a queer writer based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Their work has appeared in Door Is A Jar, COUNTERCLOCK, and Screen Door Review among others. You can find them on Instagram @kaitlynwriteswords.
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