The Grinding

The train is a rattle of steel on steel.

I catch my face in the glass of the shop,

a stranger with stone where his mouth used to be.

The ache is a needle behind my ears.

My teeth are a white line, a barricade

pressed so tight that the roots begin to sing.

I didn't notice the pressure arriving,

only the way the air feels like a wall

I’m trying to bite my way through.