Bruxism
Melanie Graham (Lancaster University, England)
.
.
In the office, a swirling bowl on a porcelain stand,
a poster of a dancing tooth. The man behind the paper mask
.
draws back, metal hook a tiny prosthetic in his hand.
Been grinding your teeth? I nod,
.
remembering a poem I’d just read – a woman raped,
mouth pried open, her jaws
.
aching under slamming hips and no escape –
how I had to look away from her words.
.
He slides in for x-ray, slicing
with the plastic’s sharp prod, tearing
.
the softest cells away,
Bite down hard. I nod.
.
.
Melanie Graham is a second year PhD candidate at the University of Lancaster UK and is working on a creative dissertation concerning violence and women. Her poems have appeared most recently in Harvard Summer Review, sweet: a literary confection, Cake, and The Southern Quarterly.
