My teeth are bad
aren't they? My history is worse.
Let's talk about something else,
and the answer is "no",
local weather is definitely out
and I wasn't driven here
any more than
a bird is driven to cut its beak
on a sliver of whale bone
clasped to its bars by a slip of
bent aluminum.
Let's dispense and let me tell
the real story behind
how I came to be gap toothed
before an age when the fronts
would have a chance to flee
of their own volition. It was a day
when I saw a man's shopping bag
give up the ghost mid stride and I
was two inches deeper than my ankle
in runoff to garbage gorged drains
and I thought there was
no way
the day
could get
any
worse.
