Suzanne Langlois
Toothpaste
What I remember probably isn’t what happened,
but what happened as seen through a telescope
or a microscope or a kaleidoscope. I stood on
the stool my dad built from scrap wood so my sister
and I could brush our teeth and spit in the sink.
Or maybe it wasn’t scrap wood, but wood bought
expressly for this purpose, for seeing my own face
in the mirror as one cheek and then the other
bulged and unbulged with the brush strokes.
The door folded like an accordion and was more
screen than door. Or maybe there was a real door.
I don’t know. I just remember the privacy being
only pretend privacy. I remember being unable
to lock myself in or anyone else out, but that can’t
be right. What five-year-old thinks of locks?
Maybe I was six or seven. Maybe I was twenty-two.
The door either opened or was already open,
and my mother rushed in behind me and bent over
the toilet. I watched her in the mirror. No, I turned
to her, toothbrush in mouth. No, I averted my eyes
and tried not to gag as she wretched and poured
the wine back out of her mouth and into the bowl.
I stared at myself in the mirror, afraid to move,
afraid to spit, afraid she’d notice me. She didn’t
notice me. She did notice me. She apologized
and cried. I cried and apologized. We both
ignored each other and pretended nothing
had happened. Nothing had happened.
What happened? Something happened once
that made me hate the taste of toothpaste.
Disarmed
A shovel is a better weapon
than a gun when you are facing
a scorpion.
The problem is we pick our weapons
before we’ve seen the enemy
and mostly choose badly.
I can wave a pistol and yell threats,
but my dad’s dementia won’t drop
his mind and flee.
Instead, it will turn me into a stranger
with a gun. Whether an object is
a weapon or a tool depends partially
on the state of mind of the person
holding it and partially on that
of the people within swinging distance.
Every time I visit my dad, I leave
with one of his tools hidden
in the trunk of my car.
I think of this as gradual
disarmament. He thinks someone
is breaking into his garage.
When I was little, I knew
exactly where he hid his gun—
in the back of his sock drawer.
Now, I just hope he’s forgotten
he has one, and try not to startle him
when he’s holding something
that could be lethal if he forgot
what he was using it for
and with whom.
Suzanne Langlois
Suzanne Langlois is a teacher from Portland, Maine. Her collection “Bright Glint Gone” won the 2019 Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance chapbook award. Her work has appeared in journals such as Quarterly West, Rust + Moth, Cider Press Review, Scoundrel Time, and in the 2022 Best New Poets Anthology. She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College.