Doctor Cold Hands Keeps Putting His Fingers In My Mouth Poem by John W. McEwers

My wisdom teeth are still trying
to get through my gums,
like little ivory miners
spelunking in a cave
full of pink flesh.

They dig and dynamite,
clearing a path,
and busting the buried gas mains
that are my oral nerves.

The caves fill with methane-pain,
and if they brought canaries those canaries
are dying a thousand suffocated deaths,
and I get to experience every single one
as though it were my own.

The doctor tells me to floss,
and suggests a mouthwash
which will flood the canaries out,
but says nothing will change while the mining camp
lives on.

'Out! ' he says, 'They must be out! '
And I would say the same thing
if he'd take those frigid fingers out of my mouth
long enough for me to speak.

I'd be talking about his fingers.