Read a Poem
A Gnashing of Teeth
by Mitch James
When the boy pointed to the crystalline sky of onyx
with no moon
and asked
with a horseshoe smile
“Dad, what are all those stars made of?”
his father
who couldn’t remember a night sky so clear in the boy’s lifetime
said
“Teeth.”
“Teeth?”
the boy asked
smile fading.
“Teeth,” the father confirmed
“for eating.”
“For eating what?”
“Everything,” he told the son
who had a mother dying of cancer
the son
who had a bent-backed coal-lung father
owner of the pickaxe
and mortgage that buried them all.
The man realized
at the boy’s fleeting smile
he only wanted to believe in something not filthy and cold
something not humid and dank in the summer
something not just a small hunk of meat and bread and broth
something not the wheeze of a match-stick mother
who cried when she thought nobody could hear
something not
him
who said to his
only son
that the universe was teeth
a mouth
gnashing teeth.
“But past the teeth” said the man
“is heaven
not too hot
not too cold
nobody gets sick
and money doesn’t matter.”
The boy smiled
yet said with conviction
“But we have to make it past the teeth?”
“Yes,” said the man
“first we have to make it past the teeth.”
“A Gnashing of Teeth,” by Mitch James, from Shelia-Na-Gig. July 2017. Used by permission of the author.
Mitch James was born and raised in Central Illinois, where he received a BA in English from Eastern Illinois University. He received a Master’s in Literature and a Ph.D. in Composition from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He’s had fiction and poetry published in
Decomp, Underground Voices, Kill Author, Digital Americana and
Blue Earth Review, among others. Recently, James’s chapbook of fiction
The Cut Worm was released by Underground Voices Press, and his short story, “What Floats, What Sinks” was released with
Calliope Magazine. Mitch lives in northeast Ohio, where he’s an Assistant Professor at Lakeland Community College. Find more of his work at
mitchjamesauthor.com.
Write a Poem
Write a poem about a place from your childhood that no longer exists: a hardware store, a Lawson’s, a field, a house, a country…