Teeth

Esteban Rodríguez

When my mother would open her mouth,
I’d imagine a set of fossils, yellowed
and misshapen bones lodged in the velvet

desert of her gums. I’d imagine the dentist
she’d visit in Mexico as an archaeologist,
who, while staring down, mirror and drill

in hand, was unsure on how best to clean
and dig them out. And I’d imagine that when
the monotony and loneliness of cleaning a house

became too much, she’d step out onto the porch,
light a cigarette, savor each drag. I never found
those Camels, Lucky Strikes, Marlboros,

never traced anything to a habit other than
that faint smell of smoke clinging to her breath.
But I wanted to believe she was addicted

to the practice, that this, and only this,
was the reason for the rottenness, because
what else but her own body’s betrayal

could cause craters to pockmark her molars,
or to flatten her canines, or to coerce her front teeth
to begin to disappear, erasing what enamel she had

left. When her incisors fell off, and I could
no longer imagine that maybe she didn’t brush,
or that this was some old country curse—

a generational spell of cavities and plaque—
I’d look away every time she spoke, and without
opening my mouth, run my tongue across my teeth,

feeling the way I felt during grade school once,
when outside, beside a swing set, a bottom chomper
loosened, came off, and all I could think about,

as I held it in my palm, was putting it under
my pillow when I got home, hoping that when
I woke up in the morning, another tooth—whiter,

thicker, no longer crooked—would have
sprouted, eager to grow.

Esteban Rodríguez is the author of eight poetry collections, most recently Lotería (Texas Review Press 2023), and the essay collection Before the Earth Devours Us (Split/Lip Press 2021). He is the interviews editor at EcoTheo Review, the book reviews editor at Tupelo Quarterly, and associate poetry editor at AGNI. He currently lives in south Texas.

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