PS Cottier

Teeth

Baby teeth parade in neat lines

proclaiming perfect evenness.

Easy equation in which numerator

and denominator meet and greet

over pink board of lisping tongue.

Gummy foundations for architecture

of white, well-placed tiny bricks.

But the gothic develops quickly.

Dark gaps gape like blind eyes

between crooked slates of ambition.

Tooth grows over tooth, bony excess,

lurking doppelgängers of tusk.

Then mouth exorcises milky ghosts

and settles down to grown-up sense,

grinding out a modest lifetime;

our well-worn, skullful suburb of jaw.