A Little Tooth

Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all

over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,

your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.



"A Little Tooth" from Drowned River by Thomas Lux. Copyright © 1990 by Thomas Lux. Reprinted with the permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.