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Mama Mada
We Prayed for a Man Without a Beard
by Jud y Bro w n
‘My Tooth broke today. They will soon be gone. Let that pass I shall be
beloved—I want no more’ (Dorothy Wordsworth, Grasmere Journal,
Monday 31st June 1802)
As the hygienist scrimshaws round my gum
I stretch my small mouth wide as horror.
She learned on a metal skull with white teeth
painted with a black stain to be scraped clean.
When she grew exact, they covered the head
with a rubber sheath – lipped, eared, with hair –
which hugged the mouth’s airy cathedral,
its cloisters full of the breath of winter.
For months a hand scaler was all she held.
In the exams they were tested on people:
We prayed for a person with a big mouth
and small teeth; we prayed for a man without a beard.
I feel my face grow tight, and sickening
as a mask on my skull’s frame. After death
rot will strip it down to show the teeth I held,
coddled by the hygienist’s intricate decades.
Then the cool breezes off the fells will blow
over the roots. My phantom head smiles:
free at last of the pornography of skin.
I pray for a man to kiss me, while I live.
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