Dental Hygienist

under fluorescent lights that flicker and hiss there's a dental hygienist with a limp and a lisp and she's scraping at the teeth in the mouth of a businessman but her mind's not in it, it's somewhere else and her eyes move across to the models of teeth on the shelf past the charts and the medical gels to the window and the people outside on her way home from work, she'll be standing in line she'll put the register tape in the bag with the wine and the tv dinner, it's a lonely winter and a long walk home from here he's the manager's assistant at the kinko's downtown not the one in the mall but the one by the video store that's where she's seen him before but she doesn't remember his name he puts his hands in his pockets when he sees her smile she pulls her grocery cart to a stop by the potato chip aisle haven't seen you around in a while guess i've been laying low he offers a ride and she says ok he's got a yellow chevette, she gets in he lets the radio play it's a song she heard earlier today and she's tapping her knees to the rhythm of the wiper blades