Thomas Fucaloro - Poem "The tax on teeth"

The tax on teeth by Thomas Fucaloro

The tooth fairy isn’t real but tooth decay is.

You can easily prevent tooth decay

and heartbreak

by brushing and flossing your teeth regularly

seeing your dentist for teeth cleaning and checkups

avoiding hope and food that is high in sugar.

Now this might be the alcohol and rainbow Italian layered cookies talking

but heartbreak

can’t be cured by a dentist

but it sure can make sure

its gums are clean

when it smiles.

I don’t know what it is but I miss you

and I think its decaying my teeth.

Tooths 18 and 31 are gone once strong rooted and you

falls out and becomes wisdom

sets in another form of tooth

and they just beat the shit out of the teeth in front of them.

Before removing a wisdom tooth, your dentist

will give you a local anesthetic to numb the area

where the tooth will be removed.

A general anesthetic

or absinth

may be used, especially if several of your wisdom teeth

and the women you once loved

are removed at the same time.

Now this might be the absinth or the rainbow layered Italian cookies or the local anesthetic talking

but I can’t help feeling that broken relationships have something to do with tooth decay.

I grind my teeth wondering

what you’re wondering

and if what your wondering

is what he’s wondering

and how it’s all such tooth decay.

It’s such a tax on teeth worrying them

all the time

you spend together.

Now this might be the absinth

or the tooth decay

or Tania

or Erika

or the local anesthetic

or the rainbow layered Italian cookies talking

but I think this is my John Hughes poem

my John Bender fuck you poem

my keep the chin up the sun will shine and so will you poem

my something strange between us poem we just don’t know what it is

my missing tooth poem gap toothed grin

my finding one’s voice or losing it poem

my lonely

jazz

quartet

song.

Thomas Fucaloro is a New York City poet.