We inherit our teeth. Some of us have too many
and we bleed our words all over the place,
drawing the carrion and the occasional hero,
but needing to be saved doesn't mean deserving it.
Most of our too-many words are accidents.
We reject your silence; they say. We cannot
stand it. We don't. Not words of meaning then.
Just words of teeth, the tongue still struggling behind them.

There are also those with a deficit in teeth. They must
make each bite count. And they do. These teeth
have foreign tongues too, caged in the same
different ways. So we guess we always knew
we'd have to learn your language to
understand you and we guess we never did
but memory isn't loyal and sometimes
our language says we understood each other anyway.

We inherit our teeth. Some of us have too many.
Ours are sky teeth and sea teeth,
baby teeth and chipped teeth,
teeth face first in the ground
all trying to bite louder than each other,
all trying to say what none have the capacity for.

The marquee is missing all its vowels again. It's a temperate night without you
but I'd take the poetry cold any day, hand slipped into the itch of a wool pocket,
your favorite coat drawn up about the collar like the guy in the a movie this
theater never shows. The only one that matters.

There's the concession, the ticketeer, the ugly carpet, the dressing room lights,
the monster dark beneath the red dotted light, leading the only way in or out.
You're not here, which means I'm alone, which means my company is dust
and flashbacks. I'm alone. And then. I'm not.