IN REMEMBRANCE OF ST APOLLONIA / I WAS AT THE DENTIST'S TODAY Poem by Nora-Eugenie Gomringer

And I was wide open,
my mouth a great wound,
proof of pleasure and plenty.
Eyelids rigid with gnawing pain,
my hands holding tight like fools, yet
guessing that to hold on
wouldn't bring them anything.
Out of amalgam, skillfully,
answerlessly, the giant formed in his temple
- it was almost still the Sabbath -
a tiny blossom and buried it in a hole.
Since when have I had this hole, oh Lord? What does
it mean to carry a hole around? A nonplace, a paradise
internalised. I almost wanted to call out: this hole, it seems
to me, is me. Do not remove it from this world!

But I'd been long since flourished, fluoridised,
tight-lipped: a girl
before her time.