Adulteration

I called my sister and who should answer,
  But my niece who is all four years old,
Her focus was firmly on the future,
  And about it all, I was to be told.
Today was the day, oh boy what a day,
  Two friends were on route to her happy home;
Into the pool they were to plash and play,
  The pure joy of this came right through the phone.
I had thought my mood was doing okay,
    “Till it was dwarfed by my niece’s huge light;
Now am I her emotional protégé,
  Please, what can I do to feel half this bright?
	I must my adulteration now shake,
	Just to splash with her friends, that’s all it takes.
                                        -- Robert Kittredge

No More Teeth Like Pearls
 
I'm having a hard time with a lead singer's teeth, straight and neon-like teeth
distracting me. What's the angst he's emoting? What's he saying with his teeth?
 
The Monkeys were more tragic, Milli Vanilli more authentic. I could be jealous
of his whiter than sheets-washed-in-Clorox, reflecting-in-the-sun-metal teeth,
 
his blinding halogen headlights. Forget "pearly." Pearly is out, too subdued,
too creamy to limn these rows of incisors. This obsession with white teeth,
 
this "whitest" attesting to greed like Wallis Simpson's "A woman can't be too rich
or too thin." Dukes and duchesses gargled with piss to bleach their teeth
 
with uric acid. That's how subservient they were to smiles. Don't go blaming gays.
Yes, they've pushed the hygienic envelope, they love veneers & whitened teeth;
 
it's royalty that started this whole whiter-than-white movement. Aping kings
and queens the nouveau riche had barber-surgeons file down their teeth
 
then dab them with corrosive nitric which destroyed the enamel, the dentin
exposed, leading to decay! No more society appearances, no more pearly teeth.
 
 -Published on The Ghazal Page
                                        -- Cathryn Shea