The Smile With Too Many Teeth

The Smile With Too Many Teeth

The woman at the counter smiled and the count was wrong.
Too many teeth behind the lips, the smile too long
for the real estate of the face, the gums receding
into a display that went past any normal greeting.

Thirty-two is standard. I counted forty-four.
And the smile kept going, stretching toward the jaw and more,
and the eyes above the smile were not smiling with the mouth,
and the whole face was a civil war between the north and south.

She handed me the receipt with fingers that were slightly long,
the knuckles one too many, and the fingernails were strong
in a way that human fingernails are not, translucent, thick,
and the smile with too many teeth made the handing-over sick.

I left the store and sat inside my car and locked the doors
and watched her through the window, smiling still, and the floors
of my certainty about the world gave way beneath the weight
of a woman with too many teeth who did not blink at eight.

The smile with too many teeth, the grin that does not fit.
The wrongness at the slit
where the face divides between the human and the mask.
And the smile with too many teeth does not care if you ask.

I went back the next day.
Different cashier.
I asked about the woman from yesterday.
They said they only have two employees.
Neither matched the description.