Root Canal

The salt was thick as beach sand in the bag.

I was watching something black and white and slow

when the kernel gave back what I gave it—

a sharp, sudden crack in the back of the jaw.

I spat the grit into my palm.

The piece was small, a jagged bit of limestone,

wet and heavy with the news that I am breaking.

The body doesn’t leave all at once.

It drops its stones one by one in the dark,

leaving a hole where the tongue goes to worry.