COVER STORY
FLORENCE SAGE
Bitch slapped in a bar fight.
No, that’s not really how I lost my tooth.
Never been in a catfight. Overall,
no hard knocks of the physical type,
maybe a deficit in my biography.
Someone last week came up with
the bar fight idea for me
and I added the bitch and the slap
and I’m going to use it.
More dramatic than the stupid real story,
just me in my kitchen biting down
on a tiny chicken rib and snapping my tooth off
at the gum line with a bad flick of my hand,
no more gnawing bones for me, canine throwback.
Right lateral incisor, the diagram says, right up
next to the front, and a month for any repair.
Besides the crooked grin trying to hide it,
I’ve gotten myself a tension headache
agonizing about how to fill the space, or not:
a costly root canal job for a post and crown,
an extraction and bridge with wires and hooks?
I’m too vain to adjust to a hole in my mouth.
It isn’t black marker and this isn’t Halloween,
it’s a gap. And mine to deal with.
But I don’t know, dammit, whether or how to smile
or talk because no one’s looking at my intentions
anymore, they’re staring into my mouth.
You don’t have to be a bitch to do a bitch slap,
you just have to want to. It’s in how you do the slap.
Back handed is best, and hard, lots of attitude and forearm,
good wrist, anyone can do it, and I’m ready.
You go into a bar looking for a fight.
I’ll be waiting for you
with my headache and a double shot
because when is a cover story ever just a story?
And besides, I’ve got more teeth.
No, that’s not really how I lost my tooth.
Never been in a catfight. Overall,
no hard knocks of the physical type,
maybe a deficit in my biography.
Someone last week came up with
the bar fight idea for me
and I added the bitch and the slap
and I’m going to use it.
More dramatic than the stupid real story,
just me in my kitchen biting down
on a tiny chicken rib and snapping my tooth off
at the gum line with a bad flick of my hand,
no more gnawing bones for me, canine throwback.
Right lateral incisor, the diagram says, right up
next to the front, and a month for any repair.
Besides the crooked grin trying to hide it,
I’ve gotten myself a tension headache
agonizing about how to fill the space, or not:
a costly root canal job for a post and crown,
an extraction and bridge with wires and hooks?
I’m too vain to adjust to a hole in my mouth.
It isn’t black marker and this isn’t Halloween,
it’s a gap. And mine to deal with.
But I don’t know, dammit, whether or how to smile
or talk because no one’s looking at my intentions
anymore, they’re staring into my mouth.
You don’t have to be a bitch to do a bitch slap,
you just have to want to. It’s in how you do the slap.
Back handed is best, and hard, lots of attitude and forearm,
good wrist, anyone can do it, and I’m ready.
You go into a bar looking for a fight.
I’ll be waiting for you
with my headache and a double shot
because when is a cover story ever just a story?
And besides, I’ve got more teeth.