On Christmas last year my brother strung up
all his baby teeth on the tree instead of lights,
their edges shining in the luminescence of the moon.
And there was a kind of sadness in that,
all those tiny reminders threaded
through the forlorn branches.
I counted every hole in his mouth
and found twenty broken stars,
vessels that drank too much daylight
and wished upon a sun that had already collapsed.
A mere dream fills the space between his lips,
a dream as hopeless as the burnt out stars.
When I asked him what those
baby teeth meant to him,
he replied that they kept track of
his fears and hopes,
every one of them as ragged
and tiny as those little molars.
Soft fingers of light
almost brighten his empty mouth,
leaving susurrus trails
that fade in curling tendrils.
His innocence is left behind, strung up
around faded childhood dreams.
collaboration with the lovely www.clericus.tumblr.com