The green tinted windows
Cast an emerald glow over everything
It’s like coming to Oz to ask for a filling
My new dentist, now I’m back home in Honolulu
Wears thick gold-rimmed glasses that also glow sage tinged
His knowing smile hints of some secret being revealed
But since I’d told him I saw the cavity in my bathroom mirror
This foreknowledge can’t be what the wizard might have gleaned
He begins with, “They do not meet properly, your top and bottom teeth
An overbite, you have, although severe it is not
More pronounced with time, it will become
So braces, I recommend, before too late, it will be
Your teeth, you may lose, since top and bottom must meet
Or your jawbones,” he continues, “weaken gradually they will
Due to lack of proper use, deteriorate, they must”
I ask why, over my lifetime, having had four dentists already
None of them has ever mentioned this dire condition
He says, “Dire, it is not, stress this, I must
But the sooner you get braces, the less bone, will you lose”
I ask if this means I must have teeth pulled
All my friends with braces back in grade school had teeth taken out
“Depends, it does,” he says, “whether the orthodontist chooses
The top teeth, to draw in, or the bottom, to push out”
I am adamant that I do not want any teeth removed
“For a non-extraction practicing orthodontist, search, I will
And you I will call, when, find one, I do”
He gives me my filling after numbing and drilling
And I leave his green office cursing my orthodontic fate
Lanning Lee 