Pain

Yesterday I went to the dental hygienist. She grappled with my roots. I hadn't been for a while so calcified barnacles and other debris needed scraping, flushing, burnishing till the roots shone pristinely in a row, standing in some sort of orderly fashion. There was some bleeding but doubtless no hidden foul bacteria in underlying crevasses . "I hope I didn't hurt you , " she said. I said, " It wasn"t a problem. I played hockey."