One thing I like less than most things is sitting in a dentist chair with my mouth wide open.
And that I will never have to do it again is a hope that I am against hope hopan.
Because some tortures are physical and some are mental,
But the one that is both is dental.
It is hard to be self possessed
With your jaw digging into your chest,
so hard to retain calm
When your fingernails are making serious alterations in your
life line or love line or some other important line in your palm,
So hard to give your usual cheerful effect of benignity
When you know your position is one of the two ot three in life most lacking in dignity
And your mouth is like a section of road that is being worked on

And it is cluttered up with stone crushes and concrete mixers and drills and
steam rollers and there isn't a nerve on your head that aren't being irked on.
Oh  some people are unfortunate to be worked on by thumbs,
And others have things done to their gums,
And your teeth are supposed to being polished
But you have reason to believe they are being demolished.
And the circumstances that adds to your terror
Is that it's all done with a mirror,
Because the dentist may be a bear, or as the Romans used to say, only
they were referring to a feminine bear when they said it, an ursa,
But all the same how can you be sure when he takes his crowbar in one hand
and mirror in the other he won't get mixed up, the way you do when try to tie
a bow tie with the aid of mirror, and forget that left is right and versa
And then at last he says, That will be all, but it isn't because he then coats your mouth from cellar to roof
With something I suspect is generally used to put shine a horse's hoof,
And you totter to your feet and think, Well it's over now and after all it was only this once,
And he says come back in three monce.
And this O Fate, is I think the most vicious that thou ever sentest,
That Man has to go continually to the dentist to keep his teeth in good condition
When the chief reason he wants his teeth to be in good condition is so that he won't have to go the dentist.