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Composite Reconstruction
Ruth Towne I view the color first, one shade of yellow, and another, A1 then C2, neither white. Mine are teeth unbleached. The assistant explains my teeth are dry, dehydrated. The dentist promises a change in their shade post-procedure. A question: C2–do you agree? An answer: yes. The dentist addresses the front tooth I chipped in two, to shape and make it new. Dentist and assistant pass tools above my face. I lay flat between them but cannot translate these foreign objects. A board game, I receive their action. Their tools, one planchette, slide from side to side. I am their Ouija board. They shape questions and record the vowels I return until they restore my tooth. Overlarge, imprecise, grotesque–where was nothing, now a false tooth. Only vowels, the occasional y possess me. Multiple choice: shape here, here, here, or all of the above? He says shape, shaves is what he means. The structure looms. An answer, a guess, a yes to all. Their game resumes. A response essay: I request a hairstylist trim around my face, she asks where I like my bangs to fall, eyebrow or eye? I save the risk for another day. Who am I to say, yes, this is the shape I choose for my tooth? After two hours, the dentist reviews his work, requests feedback. I suggest perhaps more shaping. He instructs me then to test it out, return for a trim in about a week if I need. To choose a new tooth is a lesson self-taught. I concede. A bonus point: I imagine in place of my new tooth what the dentist of one hundred years ago would have reclaimed, a central incisor straight from a dead soldier’s head. This improves my mood, though slightly. My tongue relearns my tooth, new and smooth. I will have always possessed this tooth soon, but for now to speak, I lisp. |
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Photo by Thiebaud Faix
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