My Smile's Architect Has Passed

I always check the paper's obit page
to see if someone that I know
has passed from this life to the next.
Or should I say, known slightly. (One
assumes that if someone I knew quite well
were headed to celestial home, I would
have heard about it sooner.)
The other day, a banker's wife who always
struck me as genteel and pleasant,
wearing air of country club, with
strong opinions on fashion,
politics, and rooms that had no windows.
Claustrophobic issues maybe, not
that I would ask. I found another
room for her and handed her a tissue,
cataloging knowledge so I never made
the same mistake again. Today the man
I credit with my smile, my sister's and
my mother's, the three of us all squirmed
within the handrests on his orthodontist
chair as metal bands were hammered on,
and rubber bands attached that changed
the way our teeth sit in their sockets.
architect arranging complex nature of our grins.
It seems ironic that both deaths have
brought to mind remembrances
of mouths, the dental office where
I worked, the place I got my headgear
and the permanent retainer (that I
had removed as soon as I got married,
not a wise choice as the teeth
went back the way they came, still
crooked down below). How transient,
our teeth and lives, our smiles so
easily persuaded to improve when
pleasantness invites us to sit down
and visit, our souls so quick to
take up residence in far-away dimensions
grander than we've ever dreamed,
when once our names are called
to leave behind this earth.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Rest in peace, dear lady and Dr. Barkett.