First loss

This crow is flying about

With its own feather in its beak

Much like me holding on to my 

First milk tooth when it fell

And trying to put it back fearing

The ridicule of peers

I had seen being ridiculed;

It was a rite of passage

To cope with the first loss

To get it soon buried

In the backyard

Helped by mother

With a generous sprinkling of milk;

Mother has now become a framed photo

Quietly receiving her monthly oblations

So has father who consoled me

With the fact that teeth for grown-ups

Replace the ones we lose;

Every memory is a memory of loss

Of what we lost and what we have not.