Milk Teeth

Small maple jar
like perfect bones
belonging to the vertebrae
of a small mammal.
Dientes de leche arced
in a handwritten font.
I don’t know why
my mother kept them
or why I’ve kept them too, strange
treasure. I tip them out carefully
and stack them back inside;
tooth Tetris.
The broken bits are fine powder
I excuse to the floor
with an exhale.
I run the shiny side of a molar
along my lips, the grooves catch
slightly as the enamel glides.
The roots are gone, leaving
calcified chambers on the underside.
One tooth, pewter striped amalgam,
like a nail forced in,
or an unearthed piece
of howlite with its silvered vein.
Two wisdom teeth, still caked
in dried blood, a ruddy brown,
sound like two acrylic beads
as I strike them together,
or the slight tick tick
of a clock.