Fuck You, You Fucking Fuck
I’d just removed my “flipper”
before going to bed –
the plastic retainer with the false tooth
I put into my mouth
like one of those wax Halloween candies
with the vampire fangs,
to cover the gap in my smile
where the dead tooth had been yanked –
when I saw the internet ad
for a baseball cap whose visor read:
Fuck You, You Fucking Fuck.
Snickering with adolescent mirth,
I pointed it out to my wife.
“Abby,” I joked, “this is what
I want for Chanukah.”
When she came over to look,
I read the slogan aloud.
Only, whistling through
the hole in my mouth,
it made me sound
like a flatulent old man,
the hiss and poof of loose bowels.
With chagrin, I recalled
my grandmother’s dentures
in a glass of water
by her bedside,
her mouth collapsed to a pucker
like a deflated balloon.
That only happens to old people,
I remembered thinking at the time.
Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore, where he lives and Reviews Editor for Adirondack Review. His most recent books include American Zeitgeist (Apprentice House) and a chapbook, Jack Tar's Lady Parts ( Main Street Rag Press). Another poetry chapbook, Me and Sal Paradise, is forthcoming from FutureCycle Press.