Uh

My dentist calls to tell me, after a lengthy search – before the internet
He’s found an orthodontist who doesn’t use extraction to achieve the perfect bite
I sit in this humane man’s chair while he stares into my mouth
Barely having said a word since I sat, “Bite down,” he says
And when I do as I would normally, the tongue depressor breaks
With a fresh one in hand, “Bite down,” he says again, “But very gently, this time”
As lightly as a mother prays a child with teeth come in will nurse
And the depressor breaks again, a baby’s dreaded bite sunk in
He points at the X-rays of my teeth “You see this part of the jaw?”
He says, pointing to the mandible
“Uh-huh,” I respond as if I knew where this was going
“A normal mandible curves down, like this,” he indicates with a gestured curve
“Uh-huh,” I say, following along so far
“But yours, as you can see right here, is almost straight across”
“Uh-huh,” I say again
“Do you know you have the strongest bite I’ve ever seen in all my years”
“Uh-huh,” I say
“It’s almost Neanderthal”
“Uh”
He smiles and shakes his head with a disbelief I imagine you’d show
If you turned up orthodontic gold in a historical archeological dig