Aftershock

A tooth can die without any symptoms. 
The body eats the roots, drains the glacier 
so slowly, nerves go to sleep
for years in the wisdom tooth.

Like my brother. The jokes dry up, the laugh goes 
cold, and all he talks about is money.
Then he dies suddenly. A 40-year-old runner 
of marathons has the heart of a 75-year-old.

Mom throws a yard sale on his lawn.
The suits, the bomber jackets
to the neighbors, like nothing happened.

On the way to the restaurant, his car old faithful 
spews water, oil, ash, fire—Mom and Dad in the back 
so hungry, cars backing up. It wasn’t happening.

A tooth starts pounding
and wakes another pounding, 
another time, another room 
and I curl up, blinds down
in that small room
under the attic stairs: a pounding, a beating,
how I knew punishment’s drumbeat and pleas to stop.
And then it did. I was five.

A tooth drums at the wake, 
the funeral, the burial.
It’s nothing. Isn’t it awful?

Grief says Please
just cut them out, all four,
and the light goes
like the burial in the blizzard, 
like the mouth shut with gauze.