The Dental Hygienist

by Tom C. Hunley

She said "open up,"
so I showed her my teeth,
a chipped-white fence
that keeps my tongue penned in.

She rinsed my mouth.
She suctioned my cheek.

She said "How do you like this town?"
so I said "Mmpllff"
though I meant "More every day,"

and she said "Gorgeous weather!"
so I said "Mmpllff"
though I meant "In my mouth?"

and she didn't say anything,
so I said "Mmpllff" and "Mmpllff"
though I'm not sure what I meant,
and she took me to mean
"Would you like to go out tonight?"
and "to an expensive restaurant?"

When I arrived with a bouquet of roses,
she stuffed them in my mouth.

She told me all about her feelings:
how she feels about fillings,
how she feels about failures.

She said "open up."
She said "It's like pulling teeth
trying to get men to talk about their feelings."

So I said "Mmpllff"
though I meant "You smell prettier than the flowers in my mouth,"
and I said "Mmpllff"
she thought I meant "I'm afraid of dying alone."

She said I was a good conversationalist
and showed me her perfect teeth.
I felt an ache in my jaw.
I felt drool crawling down my chin.

Welcome Home, Children

by David Shumate

In the early spring I get together with all the people I've been
in my past lives. We sit around the table at my grandfather's
farmhouse—mashed potatoes, creamed peas, cornbread. There's
the Confederate colonel with his mustache and battlefield odor.
The medieval peasant from Portugal with insects in her hair. The
Irish boy who died from the fever at nine. There's the patient wife
of the fishmonger. The petty thief from Cathay who's already
stuffed his pockets with my grandmother's paperweights. My
favorite is the Hindu monk. His orange robes. The sacred paint
across his forehead. He's never reconciled his lust for women and
steals glances at the dancer from Babylon—my first life. Her long
dark hair. The thin veils draped over her shoulders. She loves
to lean across the table for the marmalade, exposing her breasts
for him to see. After dinner she excuses herself and walks into
the garden. He follows. I'm not sure if it's just a natural kind of
thing… One incarnation of mine seducing another…Or an act
so vile even Narcissus would have gagged.

Dog Music

by Paul Zimmer

Amongst dogs are listeners and singers.

My big dog sang with me so purely,

puckering her ruffled lips into an O,

beginning with small, swallowing sounds

like Coltrane musing, then rising to power

and resonance, gulping air to continue—

her passion and sense of flawless form—

singing not with me, but for the art of dogs.

We joined in many fine songs—"Stardust,"

"Naima," "The Trout," "My Rosary," "Perdido."

She was a great master and died young,

leaving me with unrelieved grief,

her talents known to only a few.

Now I have a small dog who does not sing,

but listens with discernment, requiring

skill and spirit in my falsetto voice.

I sing her name and words of love

andante, con brio, vivace, adagio.

Sometimes she is so moved she turns

to place a paw across her snout,

closes her eyes, sighing like a girl

I held and danced with years ago.

But I am a pretender to dog music.

The true strains rise only from

the rich, red chambers of a canine heart,

these melodies best when the moon is up,

listeners and singers together or

apart, beyond friendship and anger,

far from any human imposter—

ballads of long nights lifting

to starlight, songs of bones, turds,

conquests, hunts, smells, rankings,

things settled long before our birth.

I want a dog named Nig

Benjamin Pantier

by Edgar Lee Masters

Together in this grave lie Benjamin Pantier, attorney at law,

And Nig, his dog, constant companion, solace and friend.

Down the gray road, friends, children, men and women,

Passing one by one out of life, left me till I was alone

With Nig for partner, bed-fellow, comrade in drink.

In the morning of life I knew aspiration and saw glory.

Then she, who survives me, snared my soul

With a snare which bled me to death,

Till I, once strong of will, lay broken, indifferent,

Living with Nig in a room back of a dingy office.

Under my jaw-bone is snuggled the bony nose of Nig —

Our story is lost in silence. Go by, mad world!

Dog Experiences Best Day Of His Life For 400th Consecutive Day

October 13, 2004 | Issue 40•41

SANTEE, CA—Family dog Loki experienced the best day of his life for the 400th straight day Monday, the black Labrador retriever reported. "I got to go outside! I got to sniff the bush!" Loki said, wagging excitedly. "I saw a squirrel and I barked at it and it ran up the tree! Then I came back inside, and the smoky-smelling tall man let me have a little piece of bacon and then I drank from the toilet!" Loki will experience the best day of his life once again tomorrow, when he digs a hole, chews on a slipper, and almost catches his tail.

Related Articles

• Dog Breeders Issue Massive Recall Of '07 Pugs May 23, 2007

Warnings

by David Allen Sullivan

A can of self-defense pepper spray says it may
irritate the eyes, while a bathroom heater says it's
not to be used in bathrooms. I collect warnings
the way I used to collect philosophy quotes.

Wittgenstein's There's no such thing
as clear milk rubs shoulders with a box
of rat poison which has been found
to cause cancer in laboratory mice.

Levinas' Language is a battering ram—
a sign that says the very fact of saying,
is as inscrutable as the laser pointer's advice:
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.

Last week I boxed up the solemn row
of philosophy tomes and carted them down
to the used bookstore. The dolly read:
Not to be used to transport humans.

Did lawyers insist that the 13-inch wheel
on the wheelbarrow proclaim it's
not intended for highway use? Or that the
Curling iron is for external use only?

Abram says that realists render material
to give the reader the illusion of the ordinary.
What would he make of Shin pads cannot protect
any part of the body they do not cover?

I load boxes of books onto the counter. Flip
to a yellow-highlighted passage in Aristotle:
Whiteness which lasts for a long time is no whiter
than whiteness which lasts only a day.

A.A.'ers talk about the blinding glare
of the obvious: Objects in the mirror
are actually behind you, Electric cattle prod
only to be used on animals, Warning: Knives are sharp.

What would I have done without: Remove infant
before folding for storage, Do not use hair dryer
while sleeping, Eating pet rocks may lead to broken
teeth, Do not use deodorant intimately?

Goodbye to all those sentences that sought
to puncture the illusory world-like the warning
on the polyester Halloween outfit for my son:
Batman costume will not enable you to fly.

Sleeping

by Raymond Carver

He slept on his hands.
On a rock.
On his feet.
On someone else's feet.
He slept on buses, trains, in airplanes.
Slept on duty.
Slept beside the road.
Slept on a sack of apples.
He slept in a pay toilet.
In a hayloft.
In the Super Dome.
Slept in a Jaguar, and in the back of a pickup.
Slept in theaters.
In jail.
On boats.
He slept in line shacks and, once, in a castle.
Slept in the rain.
In blistering sun he slept.
On horseback.
He slept in chairs, churches, in fancy hotels.
He slept under strange roofs all his life.
Now he sleeps under the earth.
Sleeps on and on.
Like an old king.

The Scientist

by Jonathan Holden

Other fathers might cuss out a lawnmower
that wouldn't catch. Or kick the car.
Mine would simply stop. A physicist, he'd stop
and think awhile, his breath wheezing
through his nose-hiss and hiss, mechanical
until, abruptly, a solution clicked.
Then, step by step, arranging parts
in the sequence they'd come loose,
he'd direct at our lawnmower a logic
even that sullen machine could not refute.
Then, just as systematically, refit
each wrench upon its pegboard silhouette,
re-index every drill bit, every nail—
this small, half-German intellectual
who, although he'd own no gun himself,
let me wear twin Lone Ranger cap pistols
on each hip. You couldn't tell
just what he thought of you. Had he hated
us, he wouldn't have shown it. When,
in that reasoning, mildly troubled tone
of his that meant he might
be disappointed in his son, he once explained,
In war, people hurt with tools,
I shuddered. You couldn't imagine what
he might invent. He was a patient man.

I like this, but I'd like to know what it means.

The Virgin King

by John Ashbery

They know so much more, and so much less,

“innocent details” and other. It was time to

put up or shut up. Claymation is so over,

the king thought. The watercolor virus

sidetracked tens.

Something tells me you’ll be reading this on a train

stumbling through rural Georgia, wiping sleep

from your eyes as the conductor passes through

carrying a bun. We’re moving today,

today on the couch.

my preferred translation, thanks Mr Lowell

To the Reader

by CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

Infatuation, sadism, lust, avarice

possess our souls and drain the body's force;

we spoonfeed our adorable remorse,

like whores or beggars nourishing their lice.

Our sins are mulish, our confessions lies;

we play to the grandstand with our promises,

we pray for tears to wash our filthiness;

importantly pissing hogwash through our styes.

The devil, watching by our sickbeds, hissed

old smut and folk-songs to our soul, until

the soft and precious metal of our will

boiled off in vapor for this scientist.

Each day his flattery makes us eat a toad,

and each step forward is a step to hell,

unmoved, through previous corpses and their smell

asphyxiate our progress on this road.

Like the poor lush who cannot satisfy,

we try to force our sex with counterfeits,

die drooling on the deliquescent tits,

mouthing the rotten orange we suck dry.

Gangs of demons are boozing in our brain—

ranked, swarming, like a million warrior-ants,

they drown and choke the cistern of our wants;

each time we breathe, we tear our lungs with pain.

If poison, arson, sex, narcotics, knives

have not yet ruined us and stitched their quick,

loud patterns on the canvas of our lives,

it is because our souls are still too sick.

Among the vermin, jackals, panthers, lice,

gorillas and tarantulas that suck

and snatch and scratch and defecate and fuck

in the disorderly circus of our vice,

there's one more ugly and abortive birth.

It makes no gestures, never beats its breast,

yet it would murder for a moment's rest,

and willingly annihilate the earth.

It's BOREDOM. Tears have glued its eyes together.

You know it well, my Reader. This obscene

beast chain-smokes yawning for the guillotine—

you—hypocrite Reader—my double—my brother!

– Robert Lowell, tr.