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Jeff Schwartz
All the Empty Spaces
I grew up in a house filled with teeth
crammed into crawl spaces & attic eaves,
strangers’ molars, incisors, & gaps
where the rotten tooth was pulled or
a gold crown went missing. Look
at that classic overbite, my father
would say, gripping the plaster cast
he took of Mrs. M’s mouth before
depositing it gently into a shoebox
with a dozen others from the M family.
The timbers of our house yawned &
realigned with each generation of teeth.
I hate to think where they are now
having outlasted my father, Mrs. M,
& the house itself.