Martha

On her knees while her spine turning
Up and down the leg the ant was crawling
So was the snail - the bones, a vessel.

Martha woke up one morning with a tooth missing. She'd been in all week, watching screens toss her frustrations around. Dashed on the bed each night. To the point where her nails burnt. Yet now the mirror and the gap in the mouth. Right maxillary cuspid. No explanation. The darkness of the mouth, a glimpse each time she smiled. And she was smiling. Something somewhere at last. Something true, a tooth, had decided to react. To go away to let her down to say stop it fed up I'm part of the whole damn thing you forget each time for days pressing your fingers on your flesh to remember moments that never mattered. A brilliant tooth that is, speaking words of truth. Writing down sentences in a tongue she could understand. Martha was laughing. The more she laughed the more her body, gaining confidence, started to express. Cramps, cracking bones, howling guts. Toes and calves like concrete. Pinching, itching, asking for water, bred and milk. Martha on the floor with laughter. The time had passed, some even had babies. She was laughing louder. Completely mad the story of the tooth who would believe that's what made her understand the cruelty and beauty of it all. That strange expectative position. Eating waiting observing wanting. Asking to be crushed then squeezing all the life out of the stem. Seeing the wall, building it like crazy. Going to and fro.

Martha then changed her sheets, brushed her remaining teeth and called a friend.

I think I'd like to marry Beckett.

That's what she said.