A Farewell to My Wisdom Teeth
Veronica Booth 

The Tooth Fairy does not take kindly to oral surgeons
I do not take kindly to oral surgeons
I was hoping for bare minimum a dollar per tooth but instead
I paid
Four Thousand and Ninety Five Dollars
For a week of jaw pain

 

I wonder if I have lost some wisdom
Some valuable trivia answers or the capital of Texas
I know it’s Austin.
Stored in those four chunks of bone now sitting on my coffee table.

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I could use all the intelligence I can
But apparently my mouth felt crowded
And made the painful choice for me
Probably in cahoots with my oral surgeon, remember the Four Thousand and Ninety Five Dollars? Me too.
Maybe I’ll be eating a cheeseburger one day
If I am ever able to open my mouth wide enough again.
And a hunk of hamburger hides in the back of my mouth
Where there are no teeth to tear it up
Just squishy gums with hardly any authority
Which allow
The fat bite of food to sneak into my throat and block my windpipe
And now I’m choking.
Probably the oral surgeon’s plan all along.

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Thank you for mashing all the cheeseburgers leading up to today
Thank you for reminding me of the second US president during bar trivia
John Adams.

 

Farewell my four little friends,
I suppose I’ll just have to take smaller bites,
And review my state capitals more often just to be safe.
Maine – Augustus; Washington – Olympia; Ohio – Columbus…