You asked your mother
if you could keep your baby teeth
and now you have a jar of them
on a shelf above your dresser,
beside a tin cup full of thistles
and a book of Buddhist prayers.
A red book, and purple thistles.
You told me once
you would like to die and be buried
with a mouthful of seeds, without a box,
out in a field of swaying green grass
so thistle could grow up out of you.
You said it was the closest
you could get to reincarnation,
and when I asked you
what the baby teeth were for,
you said they were for falling out
and for keeping.
This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.
