Lost as usual in the shallow depths
of the pond-green aquarium
where wide-eyed guppies nose around a little
man in a diving suit beside
a minute treasure chest, the light from above
seemingly frozen & the only sound
water bubbling through the filter, I stand
to add a gold star to my name again
today by being a good boy & not
crying out for a shot of Novocain.
My mother has walked me here through the snow
—up the street, down the hill, & past
Lake Nokomis—to let Dr. Elasky
fill more of the twenty-seven
cavities he’s found in my baby teeth
before I’m even five. Inside,
above the chair, he’s hung these model airplanes
(a yellow Piper Cub my favorite)
from the ceiling to keep my mind
off the business at hand, but pain
always blocks them out & leaves me conscious
of nothing save his pencil-linc black mustache,
plus my mother trying to quiet me
with the words, “Oh, Randy, you know
it doesn’t hurt
that much.” I don’t know anything
yet, at least not the way knowing
just means sitting still for something
everyone says
is for the best but I feel in my bones
to be the opposite. Like a frogman
undermining a ship, I stay in the dark
below the surface & the distant static
of voices with their foreign words, seeing
by my own lights, knowing what I know.
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