She is all teeth, my mother. Dangling from her gums like light fixtures. I count thirty-seven, before she purses her lips and spits one at me.

Where's my medicine?

I take a deep breath, collect the tooth from the floor. Which medicine, Mother?

She spits another tooth.

Mother, please.

She reaches into her mouth and pulls out three teeth, waves them like flags. Not right! she says.

I'll glue them back in, I assure her. I am always gluing them back in. I give her a smile, lips closed, hiding my gleaming set. The only thing about me that's gleaming, Mother likes to remind me.

The anti-aspirants, she says. Get me the anti-aspirants.

Aspirin?

Mother flops her body on the sofa, coughing and hacking.

Triazadeems, she says.

I kneel down before her. I don't know which medicine you mean.



I'm fine, I reassure the pharmacist. I just need her prescriptions.

The pharmacist pats ointment along my bloodied cheek. He is tender, fingers like cotton swabs. He finishes by thrusting his tongue into my mouth, running it along my teeth, saliva everywhere.

Thank you, I say, unsure what else to say.

Will that be all? he says.



I swallow a handful of Mother's pills as I walk home, and my legs get wobbly. I wobble along the lake, kick my shoes off, and let my body drift toward water, until I am inside, wading. I open my mouth, letting it fill with lake. I imagine swallowing my mother, being swallowed by her.



When I walk in the door, the sun has set, and Mother is snoring on the couch. Water drips from me like rain. I'm a cloud. The room is dim, but I am able to make out her grotesquerie. Arms flayed over her head, legs sprawling, and along her pale, veiny skin, planted like flowers—teeth.

She does this. When I take too long. Glues the things along her body and around the house when she has energy to stand. It is my job to gather the misplaced pieces, put them back where they belong.

I won't do it this time, I tell her unconscious form. You don't control me. I open my mouth and flash my teeth at her. You resent me? I resent you harder! I stand over her and drip lake water onto her forehead. Her sad forehead. Sad and damp, with only me to dry it.

I pat Mother down and collect the teeth along her arms. Pull her lips apart and begin the process of gluing. Except I switch teeth around, put incisors in front, molars where incisors should be. She'll look in the mirror and scream a little, but it's never as satisfying as I hope. I should hide the things. Stuff them between couch cushions. Stare at her gaping, empty orifice all week long.

When the pharmacist knocks on the door, I am deep in these reveries, imagining her teeth between mine, biting down and cracking, ruining them forever.

He lets himself in after several knocks. The door is unlocked, must be unlocked. Not many people come by. After Grandmother died, we were pretty much alone.

You forgot this, he says, standing in the door frame, holding up a package that is not mine.

I'm extremely busy, I say. You ought to leave.

I'll leave, he says. But come with me. I'll take you away from this place.

Take me where? I glue a tooth onto Mother's gum.

To live with me.

Above the pharmacy?

Above the pharmacy, he says.

I envision a life, on the other side of town, with the pharmacist. Pharmaceuticals abound. His tongue waiting by my mouth, hopeful, hungry, like a dog at its food bowl.

No, thank you. I glue another tooth. Mother needs me.

She needs a coffin.

If the pharmacy dries up, perhaps you can switch to undertaking.

The pharmacist sighs. He sighs again. Again and again.

Will that be all? I say, when enough sighs have amassed.

The pharmacist contorts his face into a scowl. He slams the door behind him, and I glue Mother's last tooth.

Of course she wakes and spits them out before the glue has solidified. Of course I'm a stupid thing. Of course I am but a tooth in her mouth, covered in plaque, sleeping soundly, her gums my pillow. There is nowhere else I'd rather be. Everywhere else, I'd rather be.

Do you need anything else, Mother? I ask.

She cannot hear me, because I am inside her mouth. Crawling around her throat, pressing into the soft, infected areas. The white splotches. She takes a sip of water, and I am engulfed, drowning, sliding down into her, where I belong.

.