ManicDDaily

Here’s a delayed Magpie Tales, a post based on a prompt from Tess Kincaid. Tess’s prompt was a picture of Marilyn Monroe laughing, but, frankly, I’d just about as soon be shot as write about Marilyn Monroe during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, so instead, I’ve focused just on a certain aspect of the photo, which I have re-done in my own manner above. (Please note that the poem is not intended to be about Marilyn–I’m just focusing on the mouth/tooth of the picture.)

The bite of Eve

A spirit of conviviality

is often partly propped
by good strong teeth.

Eve had to bite
in
to
the apple.
How unfairly difficult it seems
for the dentally-challenged
to sink their flailing
chompers into

an open-throated laugh. That bit
of the predator that seizes
humor, shaking it above
a thrown-back head as it
proclaims inside

I got it,

somehow denied
by the decay of those
squared sharp gates, blocked by
the absent bars
of canine, those
enforcers, you know, of
a certain kind
of kiss.