I lay completely content here under the stars as my smile absorbs countless points of light but reflects only a single glare from one shiny tooth back to the cosmos. If I wasn’t content I would most likely have to divvy up one whole star into 32 incarnations of god inside my head. One whole star from the center of the universe that has been reserved for me as a gift to myself from previous lives, gone. That same star would otherwise remain for eternity as an object of affection for all other stars of never diminishing light, those beaming back splendidly at me for being so kind.
I’m watching the night turn from a soup of stars into the sun that rises every day with me not seeing it – until I do. And never have I seen a sunrise or sunset behind me but every time one gets before me I do see it. Sometimes I want to take a big bite out of the closest star but I’ve given away so many other stars, at least as many as the teeth inside my head, that I shouldn’t have any left. I am better off with the soup and slurry of night as the catalyst to a perfect smile as opposed to not smiling at all. After all, I am content giving a star for a star over a tooth for a tooth.
Francis Erich McElroy 