Author: [[Abe Brownell]] --- I am crossing over and across Stillness but don't say stillness Unquiet but don't be loud about it I keep suspecting my teeth are trying to escape Must not like the smoke Think it would be better to be in other gums Not wrong I should treat them better Stop using them as metaphors Taking them for granted I went to the dentist yesterday My teeth are fine but something isn't right Crashing through the river of forgetting None of us can remember We find us all entwined Twisted around the architecture Plundering oblivion for whatever it has left We all live in the house of the deceased Jagged from removal I keep sticking on removal Its trails are everywhere Courses of wind and fire And you might feel again And again until numb and then Sense on the edge of acceptable geometry Spent it all on loose tobacco and abandon Dear Geppetto, Make the magic wood into a pipe instead Where does the life go? Fluttering off into a butterfly dreaming you're someone else A butterfly dreaming you're a magic pipe Smoking out the life My teeth have only ever been real I'm going to the dentist tomorrow I can't promise my teeth Do they smoke out with life? Will I one day open my mouth to 31 enameled butterflies fluttering out? Will they dream by day or night? Will they light up like a pipe? They'll chew the shadow of the moon They'll fly away far too soon Dear Geppetto, We leap clear of Euclidean space We fly through the manifold All teeth We are porcelain on the mantle We fly through relief I am at the dentist wearing green gloves My hands are latex-free butterflies There is light streaming out of my forehead I am crying out into the mirror "Open" Dear Geppetto, Where have your teeth gone? Are they all hewn from magic wood? When they fall will you lose real blood? They'll fall just the same Into the pipe The boy that dreamed the man smoking the pipe Becoming butterflies when the time is ripe