It was

the given, the background to our nature. Born/

with all our grief/ already in us, like teeth. But teeth,

when they give you trouble—you go to the dentist.

Sit in the chair, open your mouth, submit to the sickle 

probe and the scaler, the drill and suction device. Grief 

lodges somewhere deeper than the gum, deeper than 

a root canal procedure could numb then clean out 

the damaged interior. The very young new dentist 

is astonished. She says, You have quite a lot of dental work, 

the same way one might say Do you not brush your teeth, 

don't you have insurance? And you wonder if grief and pain 

have somehow been miraculously eradicated while you 

slept. You do—you do the hygiene, the irrigation, even

knowing all this was there before you even started.






~ after Kevin Young, "Underworld (Circle Three),"
Night Watch