What Closed

The dentist held the mirror up and said

perfect, and I nodded, tasting chalk —

composite resin, the ghost of what he'd filed

from the last rough edge beside the place

the gap had been.

It closed on its own. Mid-twenties.

The teeth just drifted shut

like a conversation

no one wanted to end

but no one kept speaking in.

My mother had the same gap.

She said it meant we were lucky.

She'd press her tongue against it

when she was thinking — I remember

the small click it made,

tongue against absence,

a habit I inherited

and kept doing

even after the space

was gone.

Now the teeth sit flush.

Smooth. Even.

Perfect, he said,

and the mouth in the little round mirror

belonged to someone

without a history of luck

or the particular failure

of luck my mother believed in.

In the albums she's smiling

with that gap

and I'm smiling with mine

and we look like two versions

of the same bright error.

I press my tongue there still.

The teeth give nothing back.

Smooth where the opening was,

sealed, perfected,

and I miss it the way

you miss a word

in a language you've stopped speaking —

not the meaning

but the shape

your mouth made

saying it.