Laws of Physics

In the bathtub, the laws of physics

have departed like prairie dogs

back into the dark of their holes.

Only the slimy surface of the limey

chartreuse brick is left.

I am staring helplessly at

my hand, the inside of the soap

has jumped to the opposite

end of the tub universe,

traveled at multiple times

the speed of light and disappeared

somewhere in the underbrush

of my toes, blossoming pinker

and pinker by the second.

The soap exists is a suspended

state between solid and void

in a black hole of finger touch,

time suspended to vanquish

the instantaneous memories

of where the god dam soap is.

My Poor Dentist

I am feeling bad for my dentist,

at home with his family of six.

Instead of commanding my mouth to open

he is forced to plead the opposite to

his children who yell and spit and chew.

At home he has no quickly assembled short flight

of stairs for easy climbing, for spread legged

standing on the plaid lawn of my chest,

with his magnifying  smaller binoculars

for the simple astronomy of teeth.

There is no spotlight to shine amidst the

barrage balloons into my mouth, no urging

the family into quick confessions of their

daily deeds of academic ascendancy.

Assistants have vanished, the best

his partners can do is pass the diced carrots.

No arm swinging machines to deliver various

long hosed attachments spraying water

in syncopated bursts around various teeth,

water here in mismatched supermarket glasses.

His ceiling light is decorative a best, the light

palled and unfocused minus any searing of the eyeballs.

The muzak of his daytime world has wandered away

and been replaced by a jousting tournament

of competing iphone sounds, none of them even

remotely approaching the definition of music.

Overall, when I think about the terror of my

dental experience it helps to pity the poor dentist

at home without his props, sans his amour,

his catcher’s mit of fat fingers no longer mashing my

tongue down my throat, just his silent chewing,

reflective swallowing and his tongue, swinging from

the chandeliers of normal eating, doing its best.