It's just poetry, it won't bite

Endodonty


04.28.15 Posted in today's words by

Worthy Evans’ most recent poem to appear here was A Life of Exploration, Finance (April 2013). The author of Green Revolver (USC Press, 2010) along with several other unpublished manuscripts, Worthy will use anything he thinks about, sees, feels, or wonders about people to put into poems or collages. One of these days when he’s less anxious about the world around him, he will sit down for many nights and write something more than a poem.

Endodonty
By Worthy Evans

I was about to go down for a root canal
when a barn swallow landed on a dogwood branch
beyond the treatment room window. I daydreamed of
the powdery royal blue of its coat, the dusty brown of its belly.
It wagged its tail feathers to balance on the branch.
Air hissed from a canister underneath my back
that lowered the chair down 
for the operation.
Before entering the chair and viewing the swallow
I had studied a large wooden bear in the waiting room.
A fly rod mounted on one of the walls comes to mind
as I feel a stringlike tug on the focus of my infection.
In the place of pain I feel a feathery ghost perch
on my mandible: at first a finch, by nightfall a bear.

 



One Response to “Endodonty”

  1. John Berry says:

    Really enjoyed that Worthy. Great poem.

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