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.