Endodontics

Everyone in the office wears
a mask, except for the receptionist,
who asks for the money. The
endodontist hails from Lebanon
and attacks her profession:
perfect. After a few

hundred x-rays, it begins.
I'm laid back in the literal sense.
A massive multi-headed beetle
hovers over my face. It looks
like it wants to feed my gaping
mouth. A mantis-like machine
approaches to inspect. Drilling
ensues. I become Texas. I scowl.
The doc needles my gums
with more pain juice.

She packs the drilled-out cave
like a smuggler, then heats
plastic to cap the gap. My
well is dry. The doc and the
nurse watch me rise from
the chair like a bear stung
by hornets. I mumble,
"Thank you." (I sense
this is rare). I shamble
out into cold sunshine and
have fun chewing on my
stoned, rubbery lip.


hans ostrom 2020

"Big Ol' Teeth," by Hans Ostrom

Several decades old, he finds it hard to believe
that a dentist proposes braces for his teeth,
to make money, of course, but technically
to close up those gaps, the ones that apparently
terrify strangers (but not children or animals)
when he smiles, laughs, or snarls. For fun,

he attributes his big, relaxed teeth
and the enormous smile (quite vulgar, actually)
to a Viking heritage. He wonders if it's
a berserker's grin. Important detail:

he hadn't asked the dentist about braces,
and the teeth are in good shape. Typical.
He has always received unbidden advice
about his teeth and everything else.
(The general heading for filing
such advice is, What the fuck
is wrong with people?)

One of his aunts had teeth
behind her wisdom teeth.
He suspects something atavistic
lurks in his DNA. Sabre-tooth
cat? Hyena? Shark?

War, famine, poverty, racism, etc.
go on, so he's not about to spend
excess thought on his teeth, which
work fine, fantastic omnivore-tools.

"Do you floss with rope?" a pretty girl
once asked him at a college party.
Not a bad joke. Apparently his big ol'
teeth transfixed her, for she stared.
Her teeth were suburban straight and white,
as all Americans are supposed to be, right?

He provided deep background. "My parents
asked the dentist when I was ten if I should
have braces. But the dentist said my tongue
is too big and would just push the teeth
out again, and the gaps would come back."

"Really?" she said, attempting to look
inside his mouth, as if he were about
to run in the Derby. She was thinking
about his tongue. He was, too,
in a roundabout way.


hans ostrom 2014