Colonial dentists
advertised for tooth donors
when they needed to make dentures —
half empty mouths and fuller pockets for some —
but the ads read, often, “White Teeth Only,”
and they weren’t referring to the hue of the teeth.

They were giving the people what they wanted.
Some white folks back then
didn’t want African teeth in their faces, but
George Washington didn’t care if had the teeth
of slaves in his mouth,
though he used to complain about how his slaves
had no work ethic, wouldn’t work long hours
in freezing cold he wouldn’t bear himself.
Suck it up, Washington told his personal slaves.
You’ll be free after I die and Martha dies;
it will get better.

Martha was so paranoid over the potential for revolt
that she freed his slaves early, upon his death,
keeping the bondage only upon those
she’d owned before the marriage.
124 out of 300 got an early release —
once again, things got better.

They banned the slave trade here a few years later,
leaving the breeding of existing slaves
as the only source of new sweat.  No more ships
full of anguished cargo, no more immoral raids
in Africa, no more need of the Middle Passage
for resupply.  Things, again, getting better.

Then there were all those years of conflict
and struggle and finally a war to free the slaves
once and for all, replacing human bondage
by law with human bondage by proxy, but at least
no one could be called a slave, and the dentures
all came from free men.  Things kept getting better.

Say it with me: it gets better. It’s what we tell those
who feel the silent stares
and not-so-silent ugliness: don’t worry, it gets better.
We’ll wear purple for you till it gets better, just hang on,
it’ll get better, suck it up, it’ll get better, we know it’s cold
but it will get better, just ignore it and be strong, it will
get better, we’ll be better someday, don’t know how fast
it will happen but it will get better, what can we do
about what is done today except know that slowly
all those desperate teeth become pearls of honor,
the mouths they’re drawn from
all become free, those who suffer
because we’re not ready yet
to take a stand
suffer on the future’s behalf
and it will get better
then — don’t die now
or cry now
or despair now,
it may not feel like it
but it will get better

in spite of our currently gaping mouths,
our comforting thoughts
about what the Founding Fathers intended,
how Washington is the father of the country
and he must have known what he was doing back then —
full medical care for the slaves,
not breaking up families of slaves,
keeping them marginally happy while still enslaved
till he had no need of them,

after which it was perfectly OK for it all
to get better.

But
who are we to say we are not
the better that was intended back then,
the better that is always intended?
Maybe better isn’t just a word.
Maybe better is a way of living
where we put ourselves
between the bully and the victim now,
and not tomorrow.

Maybe it’s up to us now to shut our empty mouths,
stop smiling, stop comforting the sorrowful after the fact,
stop giving up our bite and put all the teeth
we’ve got into the moment before us.

Stop waiting.
Step in between
the predators and their prey
and take a blow or two ourselves.
Stop the evil that men do,
even if we have to bleed a little.

It only gets better if we get better.

Tags: poems, poetry, current-events