wildscape. literary journal

Extraction
by Alicia Potee

Lately, I’ve wondered what it really means: 

                         my mouth missing 

topography, each half of my jaw deemed 
a half inch too small, a little girl sentenced 
to the dentist’s chair at nine—numb, supine,
 
                          poised to be stripped 

of my bite. And all the while, I felt nothing 
but the glare of silver in my periphery, the pressure 
of the empty holes—one for each tooth 

                           ripped out at the root.

At sixteen I’d be starved, manic, foaming 
at the mouth—snarling at an ER nurse 
who’d insist upon a gown I’d refuse to wear. 

                            My body—

furled like a bud shocked shut 
by frost—pried open, quartered, 
tethered flat. Then the prick 
of the needle, the rush of 
heat—a manicured fist to 

                            my temple. 

                            On the other side of the curtain, my mother
 
would drown my screams, slip 
out sliding doors into the wet spring 
evening, its cloaked moon full as a weaning 
breast—violet bloating the clouds that cradled 
my mind’s remains, my eyes already planning  
a pilgrimage to the farthest corners of 

                            my skull. 

                            Years later, I’d still feel the weight of 

those straps—naked 
bitch, prone and black-eyed, 
gnashing, then stiff and still 
as road kill—no memory of 
what it was like to howl, 

                            toothless
 
dirge on a blood-soaked tongue, 

                            silenced 

with the quarry’s anodyne 

                            smile.

about the author // Alicia Potee