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T H E
F O U N D A T I O N A L I S T
Radiant Danica Creahan Loyola Marymount University
I miss the landscape and I miss my left molar Just the middle bit that dentist drilled out. When afterwards, lips numb, we kissed the dirty windows of the house off Brook street, with overgrown space for a boat never bought, and a damp paper sign promising she could be ours, if we bothered not to trespass. On Driftwood drive I tell you the trees are growing towards each other, as if they know the secret is we have to hold on no matter how dear this gets. When drunken rain streams in excess from our pocketed mouths, I could taste- I can taste the back alley metal. Becausewedidn’thaveinsurancebecausemom and dad were magic- and we’d never need it, (mostly) and besides, everyone’s daddy is a doctor- except the dentist who was sad (I think) to hear of his handiwork lost at Firefly Hill. My molar and the marram grass, forever exchangeable. We were too scared to spray our names on the Brook house by the time you could drive the bleach-white bug, and now we are nowhere. And I’m sorry that I clutched and cried for Wilbur, counting clumsily down from ten, because now I know better. Now when I cry, it’s for Charlotte.