Joan Prefontaine

It’s Easy

When I go in for my crown appointment, after enduring another dental implant, the affable tech, wearing a smock with smile emojis on it, asks me why I am limping. “My knee bothers me sometimes,” I mutter, leaning back in the familiar chair. She pins a bib over my chest as if I am an infant about to be spoon-fed. I stare out the window where workers are busy jackhammering the old sidewalk to make room for a new and improved one. From the room next to me, the dentist’s drill drones on and on, like a migraine. The tech pats my aching knee. “Don’t worry,” she chirps. “A knee, like a tooth, can easily be replaced.”

yanking out
my derelict tomatoes
frosty days