Dear Camille,
I dream you, but I never get the mouth right. One night I make you entirely out of mouths. When I place the last mouth, I touch my forehead to the ground. I do not dare look up at you, this tower of shivering mouths. But I know that when they open, the teeth will all be mine. These are the only teeth I have to give you.
I dream that you are taking me to the old country. Where this is, you will not tell me. It is a secret between you and your hands, which wobble like a coffin on uneven shoulders. When the cuckoo clock chirps, you change your mind and tuck me under a train. Cheek against gravel, I watch you totter down the tracks. You walk right into the bay, and no bubbles rise when your head slips under.
I dream that we are two undiscovered species of fish. You are so translucent I almost forget to believe in you. I am made of so many teeth that you will not look me in the eye. I hunger for sun, but you only know how to swim downward. Beneath us, a beast parts her lips to show a black darker than sea. You get so small as you disappear down her throat.
We are the tap-tap-crack of a chicken embryo into the frying pan. We are the rattle of a pill bottle and a 5 a.m. sigh. We are a kiss blown toward a closed door.
I dream that we are sound waves. We are the shriek of a meteor over dead pasture and the snap of each surrounding tree. We are the howl of tires in the moments before a green ditch. We are the tap-tap-crack of a chicken embryo into the frying pan. We are the rattle of a pill bottle and a 5 a.m. sigh. We are a kiss blown toward a closed door.
I dream that we are trapped in orbit. The planet below is a needle wound. Here, we invent a new kind of cold, one that vanishes our arteries altogether. All the blood pools in our hearts, waiting. You beg me to eat you, but you won’t let my teeth get too close. Instead, I muscle through your skin like a worm, but I never make it to your heart. I only find more cold.
I dream that you have very nice hands. To put them to use, you knit long curtains, more than we have window for. You wrap the house in sunlessness, and then the neighborhood. We can no longer see your very nice hands, but we all take turns petting them and agree—these are very nice hands. At the end, you hold me, and I have never felt more far away.
You strap me to the table so I can watch you stitch a new child with no teeth at all. In my last moment of sight, you lift the quiet heart from my chest and plant it into his.
I dream that you sew me from monkey skins and mouse bones. I come alive to the rhythm of your sweat dripping on my sternum—plip, plip, plip. You leash me and show me off at a conference, to widespread oohs and aahs. Your mentor only frowns at my teeth and banishes you back to the laboratory. You strap me to the table so I can watch you stitch a new child with no teeth at all. In my last moment of sight, you lift the quiet heart from my chest and plant it into his.
I dream that I am your mother instead. I kiss your nose and hoist you up the flagpole to watch your little body catch the wind. When I turn on the evening news, the meteorologists are already reading your strange dance to predict storms. You wave to me, and suddenly a hurricane is imminent. You beckon, and the roof flies off. I run outside to catch one last glimpse of your pigtail before horizon clamps its jaws around you.
I dream that you forget to have me. Instead, you grow a real musician's mouth.
I dream that you forget to have me. Instead, you grow a real musician’s mouth. You never stop climbing water towers, and you learn alleyway languages. You are a dawn rock dove pecking open window latches. You are the first spring rain to fall over a city forest. This time, your body doesn’t break. Tucked silently in your ovary, I find I am happier without any teeth.
I dream that I can’t remember how to wake you up. Your face is a crushed tulip bud. The more I reach for you, the less I can see you at all. I grasp at the memory of sadness but return only with a Polaroid of your mouth. I rub your lips through the plastic and hope the pinkness stays with me. This photo is your body now, the only evidence left.
