I have sat in a dentists chair twice while someone near by was being told they had cancer in their mouth. It is harrowing to listen to someone be told that their life is changed, that they will lose a body part. Sitting behind a partition, you are not an observer, you are a hearing device. You are trespassing on grief. The moment has fallen into your lap. And you are static, unable to move, because you too are in a dentists chair, mouth full of cotton.
Mute (4/19/05)
The taste is metallic
throbbing in the back
of my throat
The sound of a man
being told
he has tongue cancer
Bubbles floating over plants
pop
on the aquarium surface
A bright flash
hiss of pneumatic doors
mind the gap -
The tunnels thump
this is a moving place
The feeling of
perpetual motion
The dark tunnel and white tiles
The smell of old
flashing mice eyes
orbs of oil in brick spaces
Why the memory of a dentist
brings up undergrounds is beyond me
The rhythm maybe
of train tracks and random flashes of blue
the sound of setting a filling
The man is now crying
they are telling him
that the tongue will have to go
The doors open on air
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