‘Trusting Dentists’ by Jo Burns

For Martina Evans

After three years of dissecting cadavers,
in dental school anatomy classes
(forcepping through formaldehyde fascia
for cranial nerves in proverbial haystacks),
we were let loose, Martina, on the general public.

There are twelve of them (cranial nerves, that is)
memorized with filthy acronyms
of virgins, hymens, but I’m boring you.
It’s just – it’s all coming back to me now!
Live patients? Martina, they were the problem.

It’s harder to be precise when you’re hungover.
There were mistakes, Martina.
Quite a few to be honest –
Lidocaine, injected badly
led to facial spasms and droopy eyelids.
But! A day later all was good as new!

Here’s a confession for you, Martina Evans.
I quite liked the look of an open root canal.
I’d bore to the depths of pulpal collapse,
fantasizing on the cusp of haemorrhage, gushes.
Reluctant to stuff it yet with Guttapercha.
The crux of the matter? I knew you’d ask.
I was in the wrong job altogether.

At midday, the teaching professors got high,
strapped to nitrous oxide laughing gas
Martina – honestly! That’s not a lie!
And we got half-tight at the student’s union.
Once, drunk after lunch, I treated an Irish woman.

A poet! – she said – I write for a living.
To be honest, I envied her more than a bit.
I ‘forgot’ about the local anaesthetic.
Trust me Martina.
To this day, I regret it.

From issue #6: spring/summer 2018

About the Author
Born in Northern Ireland in 1976, Jo Burns now lives in Germany. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Interpreter’s House, Southword, Acumen, Oxford Poetry, Poetry Salzburg Review and The Ogham Stone. She has been shortlisted for the Strokestown International Poetry Prize and her debut pamphlet, Circling for Gods, was published by Eyewear.