Brian Woerner
I put my bloody tooth
on a plate,
spin it for luck.
If there were two,
I could rattle them like dice.
I think my tooth is rooting for me.
Little compass, I spin it again
to commune with my dead.
My grandmother saved her mother’s hair
for a pincushion. I was eight when my
mother tied my loose tooth
to a doorknob, told me to
count down from five.
I’m alive, I say,
and hold the plate up
like a Communion tray. My eyes
were wide open when she closed the door.
Brian Woerner teaches English at Manhasset High School in Manhasset, NY. Previous poems have appeared in English Journal, Sycamore Review, and Bear Review, where he was named a 2023 Michelle Boisseau Prize Finalist. He lives in Queens, NY, with his partner and their rescue dog.