Fibrillator

“Really, monsieur, I am very sorry about that tooth of yours.”

For the man who watched me work the boardwalk at fourteen,

his body so frail I imagined his calves could thread a needle:

Just like the copy of Lolita you left on the countertop, I am

dog-eared, careworn, overdue. Like that, I am unnamed, font

worn blue and faded, an expired Nabokov girl, what you

called me, so that is what I will be. Maudlin and morbid, 

the Volkswagen you slept in was full of soda cans and gas, 

undead dwarf stars hidden beneath the hood, both license 

plates removed. Haze, we fogged the passenger seat, two grey

gone ghosts, two pale fire dreamers. Where

did you go? Me, gone in August, you in the drivers' seat, you

rotten man, you with big words and no smile, you with tanned

hands and white feet, you with five limbs, you with no name,

you who watched me work the boardwalk and decided 

I was an unbirthed tooth, fit to wilt, and took me 

from the gum before I learned to sprout.