has misplaced a tusk, his favorite at that. The one most often imbrued with mud or blood. He remembers having it at dinner two nights before, when called upon to speak without script until the moon winked out, and the troughs of fermented liquid had emptied. But not by him. He’d remained at the podium or so he remembered, priest-like at the altar of articulation. The master articulator. Extraordinaire. Even now he recalls his peroration. And distinctly remembers raising both ivory teeth skyward to emphasize a strategic point. The E of A has never lost a single bowtie or spat. Maintains, dutifully, an entire closet of seasonal top-hats. Is religious in sending birthday cards to his several hundred nieces and nephews, uncles and aunts, whose names he can recite while asleep. He wonders if he’s been poached while asleep, partially. A dream memory remains: while sleeping on his left side. His right-side tusk, the missing one, raised against moonlight. The same one that complained and ached to be flossed and pampered with warm water and salts. The missing tooth so present now in memory with its phantom pain and phantom presence. Its longing to gore. To prove its strength, and thus sunder memory.
Richard Weaver hopes to one day to once again volunteer with the Maryland Book Bank, CityLit, and return as writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub. Other pubs include: Loch Raven R, Dead Mule, Shoreline of infinity, Little Patuxent R, Rat’s Ass Review, & Mad Swirl. He’s the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992). Recently, his 190th prose poem was published under a checker-board cone of silence.