I had thought it through
the best I could
the best I could wasn’t well
but it was some

The first stair came easily like
water elegantly slips through rock crevices
except I was actually more clumsy
than elegant

More like baked clay if it tried to
shove itself into similar crevices

I scaled a single stair but with the
second stair came less coordination more like
a rhinoceros trying to step on a stair half
the size of its fingernail

& at the
third stair is where it all fell
apart

where my barely-there front tooth impaled
Farmer Jo
my adored Fisher Price man who was
admittedly already well-acquainted with my saliva

At the third stair is where my perfect baby
tooth began to rot and where
my mother first began to contemplate
if sentimentality is even worth it