TEETH AND INSIGHT

I have grown to know the world was once water,
the Grand Canyon a trickle in dinosaur-times,
my teeth once fangs, my eyes sulfur lamps
scanning jungle ferns for the first hint of danger.

I used to hide behind naugahyde fringes of the living
room couch, to sneak the last scenes of Star Trek
while my sister and her boyfriend furiously tongued each other above. I was that close to the forbidden.

I saw how a man could dissolve in a beam of blinding white light.