Teeth

Grandma warned me: 

care for your teeth because you will need them. 

Mom clicks close the lid to her denture cup case before sleep 

partial dentures zzzzzz until breakfast requires chomping and 

my wife collects baby teeth who rattle every time 

I move the Altoid tin they reside in. 

When I crack the hatch 

they’re all rattled up chattering and she can’t 

identify who is who – our son, our daughter, or even our dogs

but she points to and names the human and not human ones. 

No real bother. Our son. Our daughter. Our pups. Need them not. 

We’ve cremated three fur babies already. 

What she can tell me is our son is off to college too soon and 

all we will have left is his chattering teeth in that Altoid tin.  

My wife’s Bà sacrificed herself for beauty dying her teeth black 

when she was young. When she lived in Vietnam. 

During the first three days Bà brushed and picked her teeth 

with dry areca shells, charcoal powder, and raw salt. 

The day before dyeing 

she chewed lemons and gargled white wine 

mixed with lemon juice to soften the outer layer of her enamel 

causing pain as her lips tongue gums swelled. 

After seven days

she brushed the dyeing substance onto strips of coconut leaves and 

applied them to her teeth after each lunch and after each dinner. 

Every morning she carefully removed the coconut leaf cloth from her teeth

to avoid peeling the new enamel coating from the night before

then gargled with nước mắm to clean the remaining substances. 

She made sure to sleep lock jawed for seven nights to avoid the paste falling out.

Bà was permitted to swallow, but not chew food yet. 

Her teeth became the red color of ant’s wings 

before she applied the black alum mixed with 

the resin of ant’s wings 

spread onto her teeth for two days. 

She collected old coconut shells 

sun drying and burning them on a charcoal stove. 

She used the resin to make the paste.

From the burning coconut shells oozes the black resin

forming the final layer of her enamel. 

She continued to chew Betel nuts until her teeth shone like custard apples 

a beautiful deep black almost the purple 

I see in the black and white photographic print of her 

I developed in the lab over two decades ago. 

At night, it’s important that I wear my night guard.

I grind my teeth. 

They were already small. 

Tiny. 

My dentist said my stress wore away 

too much of my teeth already 

and I just don’t have big enough teeth. 

It’s asking too much of teeth after all.

published by Eunoia Review, August 27, 2024