Teeth Poem by johannes lewinsky

You who grin at me
Lour at me back
Who have chomped their way
Through how many tons
Of god knows what

And endured whatever i've chosen
To hurl at you over 56 years
Giving you no consideration

You who have been with me yet
Through every unforeseen event
Disaster triumph and inconvenience

You who have given me
More grief than any human being
And have on occasion
erupted like Vesuvius
Only to subside back and slumber on
For another who knows how long

Who will not be told nor tamed
Neither will you announce yourself
But will insist on surprising me
Jerking me out of my chair
At the most inconvenientmoment
With the sheer bloody agony of it

You who are the indefatigable
face of me that i hurl at the world willy nilly
And in spite of it

You whom i haveyetfound
Means to ameliorate other
Than the dentist's chair or scalpel
And how to live with have found
With what at first appeared
Insupportable you have taught me
Something about how
it is possible to work with
Anything work with
even how to make
the insupportable supportable

you who have reflected upon and devoured
every decision i ever made
and how many thousands that i didn't

you who are the face of me i cannot change
now in steady and irreversible disintegration