Tooth

Published in 'orbis 145', autumn 2008, edited by Carole Baldock.

By the second scream
he was half-way up the stairs.
Found her coiled
mollusc-tight, face pressed
against the coffee coloured carpet.
To her left, a pale playmate;
to her right, a pebble of incisor.

Unfolding the child
he parted her lips;
they both waited for blood,
but only a dark tunnel…
like the tile knocked from a roof
by his careless football
back in Liverpool,
Her tongue glistened, raw as guilt.

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