Cady Favazzo

Litany for My Long-Dead Tooth

deciduous, gleaming, fresh cut spring yarrow you
planted or buried the husk of the jewel of you
hollow Saguaro, bird teeming hole of you

replaced with a chiclet, with French tips, the faux of you
filled half the gap, the dead space, the no of you
swallowed, dissolved, Dawn to the grease of you

magic wand, sand timer, trickling myth of you
shell of a bug, sucked hollow, the skin of you
chitin all snapped, the crackling baguette of you

socket of salt, unfurling hot gauze of you
slit and unflapped, stuffed oven pizza you
wobbling sweet lipids, soft to the slick of you

aperture gasping, hick grinning slap of you
countertop ice cream, soured wax seam of you
fluttering carpal crease mineral song of you

white blitzed against the sharp and the flat of you
violet hewn crescent moon sick sorry shadow you
mold cast across the yolky black gone of you

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Cady Favazzo is a poet and teacher from Wyoming. You can find some of her recent work in Phoebe, The Columbia Review and elsewhere. She is the winner of the 2021 Five South Poetry Prize.