.
Harvey lost all of his teeth. You
had a tooth fairy,
his was a tooth thief. His
teeth came to grief
early on. The baby ones went in
the usual way but
then so did their siblings chip,
soften and crumble
and turn their array into ruins:
normally, new teeth
that grew were shoo-ins for staying
to chew. But now
.
a mere cough made another slip
off – a moderate
shout once made thirteen fall out.
One winter he’d
shivered a little at dawn. Three
splintered abruptly,
flew hither and yon. They tried
to nail implants
into his frail bone. But the implants
fell out
and left Harvey alone. False
teeth were fashioned
.
at last as a cure but they tortured
his gums. His
prognosis was dour. Then the
Tooth Thief revealed his
unparalleled plan to the man. (Tooth
Thief now long
had been Harvey’s one friend.) His
grandma Ruth
Loose-Tooth defended it when
she was dying. Teeth
were what kept human beings
from flying. One didn’t
know why, who cared about why?
He ruthlessly wanted
the man he made toothless to
fly. He’d chosen him
randomly, spun around
close-eyed to choose the first
female or male his eyes chanced
to espy when they
opened: there lay un-marvelous
Harvey, lying abed in
his baby clothes, sucking out
one little tooth, then
.
another, another until there
were no more of those
in his head. When finally
toothless and ready – was
Harvey a whiz in the sky! As Harvey
rose up on air flow
he bid all of the teeth in the
world a goodbye. His mother
cried “Harvey, don’t go!” But
that was a show. She’d
never have stopped him with smothering
mother-ness,
.
forcibly sappy. She’d never
seen Harvey remotely
as happy. He soared. His life had
been mush. It now
was a sword. Is there a moral
here, maybe? Don’t grow
your teeth back, the ones known
as baby. You’ll suffer
their lack with a charming if
toothless wide grin. Just
think of the freedom of heaven
you soon will be in.
..
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