Teeth
by Rebecca Balcárcel

Tiny chimney brush,
a dandelion seed
wafts down,
its black tip
a weighted handle -
ballast,
Mary Poppins
perfect-postured under her umbrella
drifting toward a house
tufts of magic
in her pockets
and wasn't it England
where I first ate dandelion
greens, where a hunched woman
called it
dent de leon,
and I laughed, thinking,
teeth? but saw
the sun-tawnied mane
the fuzzed muzzle
and wished to
carry dandelion honey
through customs
to the children
and tufts of magic to their father
who sometimes drifts
toward the house
sometimes brushes past.
Don't
gather in summer,
she'd said.
The leaves are too bitter
by then.