three teeth fall from the mouth of my lover.
     I catch them in a dark rag.

my lover hops in place on the leg she calls ecstasy.
     she lifts her skirt and with it
pats her chin.

I fold the teeth into the rag and the rag becomes a rat.
I place the rat in a patch of sunlight and there we watch it die.
we agree
it’s dramatic.

     we know the rat will again be a rag.  that the teeth
having been something else
will reappear
as teeth.