From Every Direction
except there were teeth in the snow where the tire treads had been imprinted
with staggered squares and interlocking plateaus, and there were teeth in the
bricks downtown, all shades of red, infinite configurations of the dragon’s
mouth, teeth by the water, teeth from augusts far back when the maple branch
fell and the sticks were snapped open and sharpened into perfect white points
by children’s hands and voices, teeth in the carpet wherever I tried to step at
night, silent teeth matching me, strayness where plastic would freeze up and
my hands would refuse to take me to safety as stray teeth guilted my toes to
the house, in place, in teeth, insects and their many chitinous teeth that are not
greedy but agonizing and exact as all teeth should be, and there were always
more in the eyes and skin and ears and only sometimes the mouth, teeth with
no hands, stray tools with no guidance, the teeth of the sun gnawing moisture
out of frogs trapped between the screen and the wood paneling of the season,
the teeth meeting at the midpoint of a broken screen and maybe I can think
of them like lamprey teeth in my mind all together, there is the tenderness of
caffeinated teeth and shared hands as soft as gums, where the teeth are passed
between each other, pulled out like coins and put in a can, that is the teeth of
use, the onus of transition, anywhere we could ignore teeth then, as I ignore
the past and present bruises of teeth on gold, in all the places where teeth are
fair and brutal and made of dust through the panes, where jawbones made of
slate run water over teeth six feet tall, teeth worn by the gargling wolf’s mouth
of the river, fractal teeth from the mountainside, and the peaks are the teeth of
gods, upright armies of firs the teeth that close upon the world, encompassing
teeth, mouths full of nothing and empty throughout, and there are teeth here in
my wrist’s bones, the watching teeth that burn my knees and make the angle of
this house one of many teeth, teeth in the bent closet, teeth in the numbers, in
the waste, and that is your teeth upon me now, the implements of force, so let
your teeth never taste, the pinpricks never bury, until I bear down and one of
these things will break
Paul Goudarzi-Fry is a queer poet and student at the Rainier Writing Workshop at PLU. He lives in New Hampshire.
