Floating Teeth
This poem, shiny and straight
at the start, soon a mouthful.
I yank lines, grind away
at first words, milk teeth
of the draft. Uncle Bob floated
teeth, arriving at each barn
with his bucket of rasps, dental
picks, forceps to pull a wolf tooth,
a speculum to hold open
the horse’s chewy mouth.
His burly hands read
the incisors, the back molars,
and with a rasp, he filed down
points and hooks, smoothed edges,
managed excess. The horses
nuzzled his unshaven cheek,
mouthed his knuckles like lovers,
and Bob whispered their names
to hold their attention, hushed
words under the scrape
of the final float. Finished,
he pulled an apple from his bag,
Fig Newtons for the piebald mare
at Ox Ridge, and checked his work,
running fingers over each tooth,
raggedness gone, transition
from one to the next like precise
words that keep the hard work
to themselves. He rinsed his tools,
tossed them into the bucket
with a rattle and went to find
the stable manager to share
his efforts, horses nickering after him.
About the Author: Abner Oakes taught middle and high school English for 16 years and has had poems published in the Potomac Review, the Maryland Poetry Review, the Baltimore Review, and Thimble Literary Magazine. He lives in Bethesda, MD.
Image Credit: Jean-Léon Gérôme “Profile Of A Horse” Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
As It Ought To Be 