Graft

By Kate Lindroos

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My boyfriend has the skin of a cadaver
sewn into his gum line to patch and prevent
recession at the base of his teeth so that
when I kiss him I am also kissing a dead person
well specifically the roof of the mouth of a dead person
but only if my tongue touches his gum which it
usually does not as I am a believer in the subtle kiss
and in the idea that subtleness is the greater
carrier of nuance and emotion and it cost 200 dollars
extra to get this cadaver’s mouth skin but his own
roof did not have enough skin to spare
although this is the usual procedure so I said to him
if you use this new mouth to mention 200 times
at 200 different parties to 200 different people
that the skin of the dead is sown into you like this
then each moment of mentioning is certainly worth one
dollar in value in the name of unexpected small talk
which is like medium talk and I think a lot about
how with a boyfriend there is a different ratio
of big and small kisses than with with a non-boyfriend
since more than requiring a certain mood the big ones
require a certain objective with mouths large and
reaching and in this reaching is the panicked idea
of the unfamiliar laced with the body’s defining
disavowal of the finite that by this act we both move
towards and attempt to prevent being sown into another