by Lois Klein
came out at night
from the time I was a child.
Her lips sunk in, she
held that porcelain grin
securely in her hand,
brushed as though the teeth
were her own and not
some foreign thing
to polish and keep clean.
Witnessing this ritual,
this proof of loss, I couldn’t
watch, and yet I did.
Each night that gleaming
crescent swam
in its turquoise plastic cup
always by her bed—
in case there was fire, she said,
she wouldn’t want to be
caught dead
without her teeth.