Recessional: The Invoice

For Services Rendered:
For Services Intended:
For Services Covered:
For Services Mended:
For Services Canceled:
For Services Confirmed:
For Services Learned:
For Services Procured:
For Services Served:
For Services Ended:
For Services the Pure:
For Services Spent:
For Services Plenty:
For Services Denied:
For Services Charged:
For Services Returned:
For Services Insured:
For Services Rushed:
For Services Silenced:
For Services Extended:
For Services Denied:

The Patient Owe(s): We pay with tooth and nail, with ticks of the second hand, and, if one
of the fortunate, with a new awareness of the jaw and its standing as the great red tent of
breath. Seeming centuries of building have, on the same site, constructed the facial
cathedral that requires so much upkeep. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam Maxillofacialis. What
do we owe and what are we owed amidst the gleam and spitshine; these constant ablutions
in front of the fonts of speech? We patient will inherit the balm of the future, as promised
under sign and seal of The Doc’s scaffold, the toothed threshold of our grotto guarded by
the Angels of Epoxy, anointed in the ritual rinse, swish, spit. The most ancient form of
protection. We the braced, who bear our teeth singing down the sky, who brought down the
apple from the bow, will be laid bare by our desirous grinding hymns. We create our need
for Him. That is what we inherit, at best, a sort of painless dentistry of the spirit. If done
well, each tooth in its place. When done, we are owed each gleaming moment to chew
without breaking our selves

from Book of Extraction: Poems with Teeth by Adrian Dallas Frandle