"Half Tooth" by Miracle Ogechukwu Okpala

half tooth

What if I told you

decay is not the body crumbling

to let the soul escape

but a long collision between enamel and memory

where teeth gnaw at longing and ledge

Erosion sweeps across my mouth

chipping away at my gums

the bridge where my mother meets her mother

where roots cannot be harassed by a dental forceps

But what if I told you that my cheekbones

and symmetrical face

are the only parts of

my mother that my genes could salvage

Where her frame swings as an 8

a full moon in the darkness

mine stands as a 1

a crescent behind the stars

my mother towers while I cower

in the shadow of her height

Look into my mouth and see the truth of it

The mirror of my smile

a hollow

an extraction

gingiva

a splintered molar

brittle enamel

hard palate

my mother’s canine

My grandmother’s incisors

my tooth warring with itself,

and gracefully losing.  

---

Miracle Ogechukwu Okpala is a Nigerian writer and an MA student in English with a concentration in Creative Writing at Kansas State University, where she also serves as president of Creative Writing Enthusiasts (CreWE). Her work explores memory, selfhood, and the generational body.

She is the recipient of the 2025 Graduate Creative Writing Award (second place in poetry) from the Department of English at Kansas State University and a nominee for the 2025 Best New Poets annual anthology. Her writing appears on her personal blog, where she shares nonfiction, poetry, and short stories.

When she is not writing, she enjoys sprinting and playing soccer.

Instagram: @Ogeokpala_