Jason Primm

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Wisdom Tooth

Forget the dandified front teeth
my dentist loves, the neat rows he tends
like bushes in an English manor garden.
This tooth in my hand leaned
with the righteousness of an old tombstone.
A regret of evolution, a wildness
better suited to cutting mammoth hides.
It would have chewed a hole in my cheek.
I've bought a magnifying glass.
I'm studying its ridges, its rotten spot.
Here in miniature scrimshaw,
I’ll carve the first half of life: 
the curves of my love's bare body
and the drunk dance of my last fist‑fight.
If there is payment for passage,
this is what I'll put in Death's rattletrap hand.

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Jason Primm lives in Brooklyn and works on the casino cruise ship of Manhattan. His work has most recently appeared in Heron Tree, burntdistrict, Rabbit Catastrophe Review and the Southern Humanities Review. 

www.jasonprimm.wordpress.com.