Lines for a Lockdown: ‘Can dentists be trusted?’

Can Dentists Be Trusted? 
(for Tatiana and Peter)

There are the ones you only visit once,
like the fellow in Phibsboro, Dublin
who roared ‘Jesus Fucking Christ’
his leg up on the dentist’s chair
as he pulled out
my embarrassed tooth.

Or the one who told me to lie
about being pregnant
so I could have crowns
that I never said
I wanted
free on the NHS.

The man in Kensington
who told me he loved
the Irish, really
then died five years later
leaving me the legacy
of an HIV test.

Others, you have to stay with.
But if they are private
they may want all your teeth
in the end.
You could find yourself
opening wide
while laid out on the chair
like a corpse
with a coin in its mouth
travelling
towards the underworld.
By Martina Evans

from Can Dentists Be Trusted?, Anvil Press, 2004. Reproduced here by permission of Carcanet Press.