2 Poems

Tooth Fairy

The ghost of that old dog Rockefeller,
John D., (waiting for the trump)
Like some super-annuated Tooth Fairy,
Stands on the street corner doling
Dimes to greasy urchins while pulling
Their papas’ canines at the pump.

Extremities

My grandmother was born
without legs. She had,
instead, two lower limbs
a.k.a. extremities. Later,
she lost her breasts. Had,
instead, bosoms in her bra.

The corsets that she wore
were apt metaphors for the
web of syntax that, like
her whalebones, kept her
rather permanently staid.

Today our language, laced
with scatologies, disdains
my grandmother’s Victorian
niceties; I, no chicken, say,
“two legs; two breasts; two
thighs, extra crispy, please.”