Teeth
For knowledge, says the Old Sage, add; for wisdom,
subtract. My head in a surgeon’ s chair, checking
Lao Tsu’ s math as these teeth I barely knew
I had (mumbled of as wisdom) introduced
themselves — rude party guests — right as they had
to go, their pinched goodbye-hello. Like learning
you’ ve been speaking your whole life in prose,
or my late eighth-grade astonishment that I —
confirmed a Gentile in almost all respects —
had hung so long among the circumcised.