Angela Gentry
Angela S. Gentry is the two-time recipient of the Devine Summer Fellowship in Poetry from Bowling Green State University. Her first chapbook, Stirrings of Movement, was released in 2010 from Finishing Line Press. She received her BA in Christian Education from Cedarville University and her MFA in Poetry from BGSU. In her spare time, she would like to build a tree house, in addition to writing, but finds herself inordinately occupied with evaluating student papers. She currently resides in Michigan.
Six weeks to the day, and I'm here again, reclining in the cracked Mikado chair you inherited from your dentist grandfather. (In Denmark, robbers discovered a chest of human heads in a dentist's basement. What it is about a head in a mouth, sharp tools meticulously scraping the hammock between flesh and enamel that make a person go crazy?) You kept it in the family—the chair, the close proximity to scalp, cheek, mouth, neck. After the trim, you push the lever, hum low in the dark secret of your throat, until I'm on my back. Thumbs, a slight pressure on my shaving-foamed face, turn my cheek. The florescent lights dazzle my eyes, intrusive stars that don't belong to the night sky. They smear the colors of your family photos, the ones you've taped around your thirty-year-old mirror, the ones that keep your hand steady, your eyes on my jaw line. But I'm watching you. Razor poised in my face's sky, your eyes gleam an ancient glee, flickering the light of an extinguishing star.