What the Light Found

The hygienist said hold it right there

and I held it—tongue pressed back

and up, the paper bib clipped

at my collar with its small metal bite.

In the mirror she tilted toward me

I could see it for the first time:

the underside. Pale. Veined.

A blue-green map of something

that's been in my mouth my whole life

without once being looked at.

The frenulum. Strange word

for the thin strip that holds you

to the floor of yourself.

I've used this mouth for forty years.

I've kept things in it.

Let things go too fast.

And here it was under the overhead light—

soft, exposed, a little embarrassing,

the way the private parts of a thing

always are when the angle is wrong.

The hygienist said you can relax now.

I lowered my tongue.

But it took a second—

like being asked to look away

from something you'd just been introduced to.