Tonight you will rest
jaw stuffed with cotton, bloody
with welcome cavities, fresh
wounds, remnants of an otherwise
peaceful nap earlier this afternoon
in the Victoria General.
Tomorrow he will telephone,
with remorse and without love,
prematurely rip each stitch, leave you
to drain. There, there; there
is no time to dissolve, dear.
The ambulance is here.
Your chart will hang off the bed
display name, age, sex: details
he will choose to forget. Remember,
you are a textbook case.
It is not often that oral surgeries lead to cardiac arrest.
Lenea Grace is a Canadian writer living in New York. Her work has been published in Grain, EVENT, ditch, and Gulper Eel. She's inspired by rock and roll, Soviet grandmasters, rivers, Townes Van Zandt, and trying to find the balance between the heartbreaking and the hilarious.
Visit her website at http://leneagrace.blogspot.com.
