Daisy’s lost her two front teeth.
Ethan knocked the last one out
being a Power Ranger. One of her
bottom teeth is wobbly and she let me
wobble it. I remember being six,
being an aeroplane round the playground,
realising I was me and I was
six years old. These moments of change:
first the wobble, then the nearly-
painless break, the blood, the weird
way it feels to eat, such an ordinary thing.
Then comes the new, breaking through
in its own time, growing you up.
Come forty you think you’re made,
even a bit over. It’s true –
bodies don’t regrow. But the soul!
When you think you know just
who you are comes the wobble.
One of life’s wild punches,
blood, the tongued hole. Again
awkward. And no fairies this time.
Then comes something out of the future,
growing inside. The right size, quite new.