I drop baby teeth
the same way I lose friends
and lovers and children,
shut surface opens when
bitterness stretches out
my gums. Gross pieces replaced,
shifted, loosened, twisted,
yanked by a skinny string. Bodies
regrow when I sleep. Mothers
sink down to babies. Clauses
die, commas give birth
to things final.
It feels
final—
the holding, the drifting, the dying.
The feeling
of a ghost resting
beneath my tongue.
Kay Mancino is a creative writing major pursuing her undergraduate degree at SUNY Purchase. Her short fiction and poetry have been published in several magazines such as Italics Mine, Sandpiper Review, and Submissions Magazine. In her spare time, she crochets and hangs out with her professor’s fifteen-year-old dog, Willa.