Deciduous Ode

I’d like to think some baby teeth remain,

gnarled

pebbles enameled

with a velvet dust, tumbled, chipped and stained

where they molder in a bin, almost

forgotten mementos

of a former self,

the legendary fruit tree–chopping ghost.

By now, they must resemble chalk

like the Needle Islands off the Isle of Wight

displaced—they must emit

the slightest whiff

of sulfuric rot, this set

that shaped the founding phonemes of his talk.

~

~

So why save these, the teeth our daughter lost?

And why

in a Ball jar on my desk,

as a paperweight for a to-do list

with half the items left undone, unchecked?

Because, if I threw them away,

I’d lose this bone archive

of those years. Because, when I shake the jar,

they clink like spoons against

the champagne flutes of wedding guests—

Because her bicuspids are

still white as gauze,

still clenching, knuckle-taut. Because

it scares me that the first

to come in weren’t the first to leave.