My dentist knows my mouth intimately.

And, like any man who recognizes a lover

across a crowded room, merely by her stance

or the way she tosses her hair, my dentist

recognizes me by the composite fillings,

the caps on my teeth.

Reclined under the veil of Novocain,

I listen to his and a dental assistant’s

chatter as he wields his drill, meticulous and

finely tuned, with gloved hands explores

every nook and cranny of my gaped mouth.

Reclined there I wonder if it’s true what they say,

that a dentist’s first impression is based on your

smile, the degree of whiteness, how big the gap

is between your teeth.

At the end of his day does he take our teeth home

with him, each extraction and filling a story to be

tossed over salad as he dines with his family,

an example to his children as the reason as to why

they should always brush their teeth?

Does he dream our teeth at night?

The decayed ones surfacing in nightmares to

mock him, in which he runs aimlessly through

forests, fog, or the dead of night, searching in vain

for a dental tool that will extinguish them?

While the healthy teeth shimmer in pleasant dreams,

lined up in rows like sailors standing at attention in

their dress whites, each saluting as he pauses before

them, the words excellent, brilliant, beautiful,

rolling off his tongue.