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A Routine Cleaning
So, I’m in with my Hindu dental nurse, Kavita. She puts on the surgical gloves and lines up the implements (I think Nazi dentist, Sir Laurence Olivier, about to take the drill to Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man). I tell her I wrote a poem lately about our souls being more likely lodged, not in our eyes, but in our mouths. She orders me to open up my soul please, poised with the drill-cleaner. Kavita reckons talk will divert my attention. She says Deepak, her husband, has a theory regarding incarnation: he says that since humans are wiping out so many creatures—elephants, bees, birds, monarchs, whales, the great shoals of fish—that we are running out of karma rides to Nirvana. That every one of the thousands of souls who line up every day to enter their next body are finding it harder and harder to light on creatures suitable for their next life. Says the powers that be are in a dilemma and have taken emergency measures, directed many souls to return again as humans, and the more humans on the planet means less and less creatures. Write a poem about that, she jokes. And then nothing from her as she scrapes from tooth to tooth except, “Now for the polishing” and “Now we’re done” and that if I can’t afford a crown, then they can do a temporary. I ask how long that will last and she says they’ve been known to hold six years. I tell her I’m good with that, being well into my sixties. By then I’ll probably be into my next life. She tut tuts. I laugh her away and say that my karma will have me return as a dentist gawking into folks’ traps all day, and how does she do it . . . the bleeding souls, the rotten teeth, the infected gums, the clam of the lingua (recalling higher-infants class Sister Benedict ordering us to open our mouths so she could examine all the black sins spotting our tongues)? And Kavita says it pays the bills, hands me back my credit card, co-pay extracted. Orders me to look after my soul now and if I change my mind about the crown let them know, and see you in three months, and yes my insurance will cover the cleaning. And don’t forget that poem.
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Greg Delanty‘s latest collection is The Professor of Forgetting. The author and editor of more than twenty poetry books, he teaches at Saint Michael’s College in Vermont, where he has lived since 1987. His many awards include a Guggenheim for poetry and, in 2021, The David Ferry & Ellen LaForge Poetry Prize. A dual citizen of the US and Ireland, Delanty is considered both a US and Vermont poet as well as an Irish poet. His work is frequently anthologized and broadcast throughout the US and Europe. One of his poems, “The Alien,” recently appeared in Wes Anderson’s movie, Asteroid City. Delanty’s “To Our Indolent Cancer” appears in the new Best American Poetry 2025.
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The Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra, India, are 31 humanmade caves, dating from the 2nd century BCE to the 5th century CE.