Root Canal as a Venetian Idyll

The exhausted dream I live in is scattered with teeth, the little tombstones of Freud that, plowed under, grow up warriors. My son buries his between pillow and case so no one can exchange them for foundling dollars— he wants to string them together, the miser. The rule is you lose a tooth for every child. The new baby grinds, gnashes, butts at the inexplicable ache inside— the dog that won’t shake off. Yet he gums prettily between howls. So smile! repeats his jack o'lanterned brother, as I do, falsely, as Death does.