Some Mouth Feelings Keep Me Up at Night

I wonder if that old man on Speedway
was actually smiling at me, or if
it was just a trick of the light. Maybe

I just caught something in the gears
of his beard, like a coin in a toy slot
machine in front of a grocery store,

or the bright blue twinkle of a baby’s eye
dissected in the bushes, or something
like the long-lost city of Atlantis

for gnats. If I had to guess, I would bet
every cent of my lunch money
a beard like that holds a lot more

than just teeth. In the 9th grade,
our homecoming queen rammed a girl’s
face into a toilet seat so hard she snapped

her braces. There was so much blood
you couldn’t tell jagged porcelain
pieces from enamel scattered across

the linoleum floor. Maybe it was
something about her mouth, too,
that makes me think, If I had a beard,

what would I keep in it? and I imagine
cracking one open like a geode
and running a finger through ridges

of amethyst or quartz or citrine rock
candy sharp enough to snag and shred
my tender skin. I know that having a beard

is to hold memories like mouthfuls of blood,
that to taste it is to be stuck between spitting
and swallowing. I always spit, but I crave

love notes plucked fresh from the trash
like I would snatch slick cherry Chapstick
and tiny wood pencils from my mother’s

purse just to plug up all the voids
in my mouth, all those hemorrhaging
cavities, little ghost holes where rubber

bands and wires used to be. I feel
my mouth could hold a whole world
full of men and homecoming queens

at the risk of bursting. If I had enough
room inside me, I would even squeeze
that bloody, toothless girl in there

and lay her down along my gums
like a gauze hand across a heart
or an overcast sky over a bald spot.