Dental Chair

By

James Bredin


Spent two hours in a dental chair and what an awful task!
He murmured to his assistant through a white gauze face mask,
And she somewhere behind my head making noise with a machine,
Amid the screaming drill in my mouth and all this unseen.

Can’t shut down your brain or delete these dental joys,
As the curved hose in my mouth makes that awful snorting noise,
Looking at the white ceiling where there is nothing to see,
And still he drills and pokes and bends and oh for a cup of tea.

And you hope the freezing holds out and there must be a better way,
You could have rotten teeth, keep your mouth shut and be quiet all day,
And maybe, just maybe no one would know that you had rotten teeth,
No one would look down on you and pretend they were elite.

Monday, August 20, 2007