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Burying Our Daughter’s Teeth
I cleaned the house one hundred days after
the day of which we no longer speak
and set the baby’s teeth inside your art
deco bowl. They looked so lost tinkering
around the matte aqua glaze, so I tucked them
in to sleep amidst their friends of ash and bone,
curled on downy potting soil pillows
as if I’d pulled my mother’s old afghan around
their tiny saw-tooth chins. Inside this careful planting,
it will be as if she still sleeps in the clavicle space
between us. There on sheets with names like Dusk
and Smoke, we will dream together of curlicue
roots and the brittle red leaves placed
in her Buddha-doll hands, the writhing worm
plucked from her hungry latch-tongued mouth.
We will not notice the sour smell of our compost
heap gone wrong and the musty basement
out-gassing into the backyard, because it will be only
the day of which we no longer speak
and set the baby’s teeth inside your art
deco bowl. They looked so lost tinkering
around the matte aqua glaze, so I tucked them
in to sleep amidst their friends of ash and bone,
curled on downy potting soil pillows
as if I’d pulled my mother’s old afghan around
their tiny saw-tooth chins. Inside this careful planting,
it will be as if she still sleeps in the clavicle space
between us. There on sheets with names like Dusk
and Smoke, we will dream together of curlicue
roots and the brittle red leaves placed
in her Buddha-doll hands, the writhing worm
plucked from her hungry latch-tongued mouth.
We will not notice the sour smell of our compost
heap gone wrong and the musty basement
out-gassing into the backyard, because it will be only
your head on my lap,
our daughter on your cardigan chest
in the late autumn sun—hemlock, whip stitch, peat moss.
our daughter on your cardigan chest
in the late autumn sun—hemlock, whip stitch, peat moss.
Posted 08/27/13
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