"Today I Ate a Dentist" by Meeah Williams

​

The dentist laid me back

in his space age dentist’s chair 

and had me open my mouth 

really wide.

 

Wide, wider, widest, he said,

wide as you can go.

 

I heard the hinges of my jaw creak

and then give way.

 

There, 

is that wide the fuck enough for you,

you misogynistic sadist?

Unable to speak any longer

I said this with my eyes, 

seductively, of course.

 

The dentist lifted one clownish size 13

and put it into my mouth.

Then he pulled the other in after it.

He said goodbye to his assistant,
who he had chastely loved all these many years, 

kissed her on the cheek,

and disappeared inside me

like he was descending into a moist manhole.

 

The dental assistant, a very nice Asian woman

named Pam, stared into my gaping mouth

with a look of utter astonishment.

 

From deep inside me we both heard

the dentist yodeling back,

“I’ve been waiting to do this all my life! 
I've tried my very best. 

 

Tell my wife and kids goodbye, I love them,
and good luck to everyone!

That's all, folks!”

 
"I've Run Out of Ways to Say This Except..." by Meeah Williams
 

I write a poem with you in it

& crumple it up

& flush it down the toilet

 

It pops back up again

 

I think of giving it to a fox to eat

I think of stashing it aboard a hot air balloon

I think of feeding it babyfood & buying it a playpen

 

I write the poem again without you in it

but I still see you in the bleached spaces

 

You laugh at me like a ghost

 

You knock things over in empty rooms

 

I buy the poem a fake mustache & a plane ticket

to Iceland

but no one is fooled, it’s recognized immediately

& turned away at the border

 

It’s returned to my door in handcuffs

& given over to my custody

 

It wears an electronic ankle bracelet

 

It sits in the best chair in the house

takes over the remote

& orders me to make it a sandwich

 

It orders me onto my knees

 

It sticks in my throat

 

It clogs the toilet

 

I’m forever mopping up after it

 

I can see all-too-clearly how it will be.

 

It’s smoking in the house again.

It’s bellowing my name

What the hell does it want now?

​