In Praise of What is Missing

When a tooth is extracted,

                                           some side of the holy wheel is unnotched,

And twists, unlike Ixion’s, in the wind and weather,

And one slips into wanting nothing more

                                                                 from the human world,

And leans back, a drifting cloud,

Toward what becomes vacant and is nameless and is blue,

As days once were, and will be again.