I can’t tolerate daylight, so I slip into the dim of kids’
bedrooms at night, adorned with necklaces made of
baby teeth. The color white makes me retch. I’d like
to resign, become something other than a fang
collector. I can fly, but only as a limp, boneless ghost,
a spectral jellyfish with floating skirts, a marble quarry
whirlwind. I smell of chalk dust, old dental records,
ossuaries, loss, and skeletons cleaned of meat. My
breath is a whiff of extinction. I have eyes like
mustard seeds. No, I’m not pretty. To reach your
world of porcelain drinking fountains and molar-
rotting caramels, I navigate a long, winding tunnel
each evening, parts of which are dark, and parts
of which are the hurt pink of a sore throat.