I am listening to Mozart and thinking about teeth.

Last night I was knocking teeth with someone my age. Our teeth were not figuratively colliding. I heard the sounds, like a toothbrush against a porcleain sink. A very literal, mistakable sound. In fact, when I think about sounds, all of them, drums or printers or toaster ovens, I'm more than sixty percent sure that the most beautiful sound in the world is tough, tough, enamel. Knocking teeth, in the most romantic way, sounds most like an echo. It is not a dentist visit or a toothy accident, it is two people with similar intentions, only, I am usually the only one thinking of what sounds we are making and why. I think of myself as a small, young person, loose teeth dangling from my mouth like christmas lights. I think of my father, up in the attic above my head saying, "Either you pull it, or I'm going to." Then, I remember the blood and the napkins and the salt water gurgling. I had a small wooden box, only big enough for one tooth, to put underneath my pillow. It was a box that was replaced with quarters or dollars, and later it was sold in a yard sale. I cried that day, maybe.

Sometimes, I hope when I die, people will say I am the kind of person who laughed with my teeth, and I hope they will not mean that my mouth is over-crowded. I hope they will say, "a very spacious mouth!" Or my friends will say, "If her mouth were a room full of chairs, there would be enough space for everyone to sit."