Urgent — Summary

Dave BontaAnxious

noon in my tooth

an urge is come that raw being to comfort me

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The poem is tiny, but it packs in a whole sensation. "Noon in my tooth" is a strange, sharp image: noon is the brightest, hottest point of the day, and here it has landed inside a single tooth. It reads like a flare of pain, a bright, throbbing ache with nowhere to hide. The speaker doesn't describe it calmly from outside. They are caught in it.

The next lines turn toward something softer, though also odd. "An urge is come" has an old-fashioned, almost arriving-guest feel, and "that raw being" suggests something unfinished, exposed, close to the nerve. The speaker seems to say that this raw feeling has come "to comfort me." That's the surprise: the pain, or the bare aliveness it brings, is treated as a kind of consolation. The mood is intense but quiet, a mix of discomfort and strange acceptance. The poem leaves it unclear whether the comfort is real or ironic, and that tension is part of its pull.

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