These papier-mâché teeth only work
because my mouth no longer waters.

My words arrive as dry as my desires.
I want to be certain

that no family photo holding an image
of me (each already a lie

moments after it was taken) ends
up in a box lot at auction.

I really didn’t want to break
the moon, just shake it, change the spin

so it finally showed its other side,
an unmet landscape that really isn’t

all that different, like a tree’s branches
echo its roots, or like a body

echoes its missing soul.