COUNTING TEETH

EMILY ANTRILLI

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I started counting my teeth    at night    after I brush out
the day from my    blue gums    twenty-eight and I knew when
I was a little older    I’d grow a new set    of four tucked
away in the back to    hold a wiser version of me    Last Tuesday
Mother pulled another    black tooth    from its stems this time
closer to the front    and laid the cracked    remains on a stray
receipt    loose guts blurring out the dollar amounts    A green
rim of moss-like mold curled up the side and I    saw it filling
the empty hole it left behind    She was down to twenty-four
and Stepfather twenty-three    They kept the broken shards in
a dusty ring box vowing one day to have them sewn back
into their mouths like living rag dolls dressed in flesh
My set at twenty-eight    I waited for the day my tongue would
wriggle one loose    and I would hear it pelt into the    kitchen
sink revealing a toothless me    a blood-stained gap    of a thing