Wisdom Teeth

That time I was marooned by a toothache – weeping eyes screwed shut, mouth agape – I might’ve been taken for someone in the throes of ecstasy, lying on the couch with all the windows open. The weather was June, and wonderful. All afternoon I clung to the thread of the brown thrasher’s song.

Even in extremis it’s simple to tell a thrasher from his cousin the catbird: he repeats almost every improvised line. Paired phrases sometimes reach into the low thousands without repeating.

Pain can sound exactly like the world, I thought. Neither can be replicated. Art lets us exceed ourselves, and so escape.

Eventually, both wisdom teeth had to come out. For a week or two I had to chew deliberately. Each bite of food was accompanied by a mouthful of thought.