black piano key teeth 

tell what you think of me now--
i ask my ten-year-old body.
i meet her at the
front door of the malt shoppe
with her crisp black belt slung 
around her neck & an audacious spoon
in her fist.
i tell her that i've become a mouth of empty 
bowls & a voice of 
vacant swivel stools--
i explain how they're
stuck in my throat as squeaky
hollow apologies
to my body.
she doesn't say much &
holds to door open for me.
she has bare feet that must
feel cold on the checker-board
linoleum floor.
she think it's funny that
i send myself sympathy cards 
full of spoons- we laugh
when i tell her how they clatter on
the kitchen floor when i open the
envelopes
& my OCD seems
so absurd when i'm talking to her--
like motions from a children's record 
telling all the boys & girls to
spin round & round like spiders--
i tell her how i  
lick the sweetness off stamps &
i confess that
i'm so afraid my own teeth
that i want to take them out one
by one--
watch--i say--
as i chew with the sound
of black piano keys.
oh black belt girl if you
could only pull out
my spine like fruit roll-up--
the flick of your wrist that once 
moved the floor boards to
break themselves-- 
peel me out of this body
i want to be stronger-- i want
to believe in something
other than the tally i've been
keeping on my wrists--
i say
i ruined us-- i ruined us--
the malt shoppe is 
just like it had been--
a row of red padded stools &
candy jars in a line like
the canopic jars of a pharoh's
tomb-- only i'm not prepared 
to burry her here--
she asks me where all my hair went
& i tell her one morning
i woke up to the sound of
morning doves on the ledge outside--
opened the window & their
wings sliced it all off--
i explain how i
watched it fall in the front
lawn like the dead branches of 
evergreen trees-- their ghosts playing
tag by the mailbox &
i ask her what she thinks of spoons
& she tells me she thinks of
them like boats. 
sarah scoops
a bite of banana split into her
mouth & we float in the channel
between chingoteague & assateague
in a kayak again-- 
we can see my father
ahead of us & clams click their
jaws like castanets all around--
i ask her where she learned to 
float & where she got her
teeth from & she tells me that
we're both floating & that
they're my teeth too  
& we're back in the malt shoppe.
she wipes syrup drunk strawberry
from her elbow & offers me
a bite of sundae--
i refuse & sip my diet coke--
i imagine the ocean fizzling around
me-- waves of foam & bubbles 
in our stomachs-- i ask her
where we went wrong-- i ask
her how she could ever think she
was me & she doesn't look up
from the banana split-- takes
spoon after spoon of herself--
we float in the peel-- spotty & brown--
i brace the counter & cough up
all the spoons in a clatter
of black piano keys
& the radio plays
"the leader of the pack" again
& the walls are poodle skirt pink
& i ask her what she knows 
about re-learning how to eat--
she picks up a spoon 
that's fallen on the floor-- wipes
it off with the fabric of her
karate uniform & hands it
back to me & we're floating
again & this time the sun is setting
& we both reach up & take spoonfuls
of the sherbet sky--
she laughs & tells me that 
she likes my nose ring &
i tell her that i love 
her neon blue nails--
she tells me that sherbet 
has milk or cream & that 
sorbet is different because 
it doesn't have dairy--
it's just frozen fruit--
so i ask her what the sky tastes 
like-- & she tells me
it's with-out-a-doubt 
sherbet but
that everything she
eats with me always
tastes a little bit
like a sunset or a 
black piano key--
we eat until 
there's no ceiling
left to the sky--
hold the cold spoons
under our tongues &
i tell her i'll send
her post cards & someday
she'll find me floating 
with her in the cupped
palm of one of the thousands 
& thousands of spoons
we could float on.