First, though, I must drink decaf coffee,
because why bother with anything else
until that piece has been done? It’s not
as if you’d want the mix of paste and
mint and tertiary ritual with dark drink
that could ruin the outcome. So, once
that is done, once the bleak aftertaste
of ground and cream has been embedded
into the morning, I check quickly to see
if my husband is in the bedroom, tell him
not to come in, close quietly the bathroom
door, a thinning veil of privacy and shame,
so I can remove my denture where the bones
at the top decided, within a few short years,
to evacuate. And there I stand, gums naked
in front of the mirror, dropping stale tablets
into a purple plastic container bubbling in
its own gossip while I prepare to run the brush
over what remains. And once completed, once
every gap and calcification has been covered
in chemical weaponry and froth, I drown
the bristles in cold water, bring them back
to my mouth tintinnabulating in the surprise
of sterilization—though you would think
my skin would be used to the feeling by
now. And so, too, the slow burn of lip
and tongue from whitening wash containing
god knows what, but the label says it also
kills germs. And since they must know it
better than I, I swish it around as I take
fakery from its bath, rinse the expensive
piece of silicone and metal that has come
to be part of my every later moment, spit
liquid remnants into a slow drain, and run
the tap high while squeezing a thin strip
of gel into what should stick and stay, press
the piece back into my upper the same way
I do the tissue, wiping vigorously at evidence
before I feel prepared to face the young day.
Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, copyright April 19, 2024, all rights reserved
Posted in Poetry Month 2024
