Snaggletooth

I wake in the light blue belly of five am.
Without my glasses your edges are soft,
but I’ve memorized your arms, hipbones,
the birthmark shaped like a copper ringlet
in the small of your back. I miss nights
in Montana, when I had nothing to lose.
I walked Grand Avenue, sparked cigarettes
for warmth. Smoke lazed in fog. cars lagged
here and there like cat eyes. I walked
and walked my body to no end. I stayed out
until morning, past the waking of birds,
past the click of neon signs. In The Maytrees,
a young couple that doesn’t last finds
a woman, Deary, living alone in a shack
on the beach. She muses upon the body’s
relentless memory: “When you have hurt
every single place on your body, you die!”
I’m starting to think my body is a machine,
whose engine is breaking down. I wish a place
existed to scrape grime, swap cogs, oil worn
belts. I never imagined scattering like this
so young. Sometimes, I catch fragments
of before, like naming a movie title
for someone, even though I’ve forgotten
the plot. I’ve had recurring dreams where I lose
my teeth, swallow them. Spit wadded,
bloody enamel in my palm. A few weeks
ago, I found my front tooth chipped.
While you sleep next to me, the world stirs,
vehicles churn, a million people start
their coffeepots. I pull away,
it’s all I can bear.

Daniel Lurie is a Jewish, rural writer, from eastern Montana. He holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Idaho and is co-editor of Outskirts Literary Journal. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pleiades, Gulf Coast, The Iowa Review, Poetry Northwest, and other publications. Daniel won the 2026 Mississippi Review Prize and phoebe’s 2026 Greg Grummer Poetry Contest, selected by Diane Seuss. He served as the 2025-2026 Ronald Wallace Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is a 2026-2028 Wallace Stegner Fellow. Find him at danielluriepoetry.com