| This Edition's Poetry |
The Hygienist
He tried to close his mind
as she eased out god-knows-what
clogged between his teeth
He tried not to recall his mother’s steely face
hooking Father’s faults, like treasures, to be stored
for pouring out with tea and cake
She offered him a pink rinse in a white, plastic cup,
and as he spat, he noticed the basin was unharmed,
unlike the one at home - which was chipped,
where his mother missed his father with the shovel,
during their Friday night brawls.
He returned to the chair. She polished his enamel
with a whirr of orange-flavoured paste, enabling
him to taste the shape of his mouth.
The rest of the week he had an ache in his jaw,
where roots had been disturbed,
and kept running his tongue across the sharpness of the gaps,
feeling them cut the silence of his tongue.
by Carol Thisltlethwaite
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