December 14: Waiting for Daughter, Cold Pizza, "Celeste's Cavity"

I am in my office at the university.  It's a little after 7 p.m.  Once again, I'm waiting for my daughter to be done with her dance classes.  It's dark and cold outside.  I don't want to leave the building.  In fact, I have some cold pizza and a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream with me.  I could easily survive the night.

However, I have to be a responsible father.  My daughter would not appreciate being stranded at the dance studio.  Don't worry, I'm not actually contemplating getting drunk in my office.  However, I am thinking about how I am the father of a sixteen-year-old girl.  It still sort of astounds me that she's in high school.  Driving my car, too.

I found a poem the other day that I wrote a while ago, when my daughter was still losing her baby teeth.  It made me a little . . . nostalgic is the right word, I guess.

Celeste's Cavity

by:  Martin Achatz


Like a bruise in apple flesh,

It has grown on a molar,

Promises to cause problems.

She is almost five.

This will be the first time

Someone will want her to open

Her mouth to reward her

With pain, a bee sting

On her peach flesh cheek

Or rind of gum.  I hope

She remembers this feeling

Ten years from now

When some boy urges his tongue

Between her lips.  I hope

She remembers the white-hot

Stab, the numb ache.  I hope

She bites that tongue hard,

Like she would an unripe plum.

I hope she's the one

Who causes hurt first,

Who leaves the boy

Raw and bleeding on the branch.

Please vote for Saint Marty:

Voting for Poet Laureate of the U. P.